Talk:Francis II Rákóczi

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Did some minor rewording to make the article clearer and remove POV. There is no information about his marriage (who he married, when, etc.), or the birth of his sons...I'll see what I can find. --Marysunshine 20:47, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Got their names and a wedding month, but no birthdates yet. --Marysunshine 22:10, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

The Rákóczi war of independence may be taken into a new article. What do you think?--Kun25 18:43, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

I think we should create an article about Rákóczi Uprising but with a new content not simply copy-paste from this article. Zello 19:43, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

There are many things in that, what could be used for the new article. So I don't think we need an absolutely new content. I don't know the exact english terminology, but it was a war of independence, so why should we use uprising?--Kun25 20:06, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

I think in English historical terminology it is called Rákóczi Uprising. Of course we can use data from this article but with rephrasing and adding more information. If the new article is the same as this section somebody would put on it a merger tag sooner or later. Zello 20:26, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Usage of historical city-names

Although I'm tired for a new edit war I'd like remark that I disagree with grand-scale conversion of Hungarian names for present-day ones because it is ANACHRONISTIC, and I don't accept the change. Only for the future wiki-generations. Zello 15:01, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Sárosi gróf - personal name under his exile. Zello 15:06, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Seeing that I did most of the original work on this, I think it's reasonable for me to change back to my version the paragraph concerning Thököly's involvement in (or in connection with) the Battle of Vienna. I had stuck close to the Hungarian version of the article, and there is no implication there that Thököly was in the battle at all, but even if he was, it could not in any way be characterized as "his" battle. The Battle of Vienna was a well-known historical event opposing the Ottomans on one side and the Habsburgs and their allies on the other - all we can say is that Thököly would have been happy to see Vienna fall to the Turks, after which he could have tried to take advantage of the situation and become King of Hungary.

Changing the style of my English is one thing, changing the meaning of the passage is something else.

While I am here, question to Zello: it's not clear what you object to? Would you like to see more Hungarian names in the text (e.g. Kassa) or more present-day official names (e.g. Košice)? In my view, in a text like this both names of cities must be mentioned, because the article discusses a Hungarian Prince with activities in places which, at that time, were part of Hungary. It is analogous to mentions of, say, Danzig or Breslau in historical discussions involving 19th century (or earlier) Germany, even if those cities are called Gdansk and Wroclaw today. As for why mention today's names - in order to help the English-speaking reader locate them in today's atlases. Gsandi 11:56, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

I think that Hungarian names should be put on the first place because we are speaking about the former Kingdom of Hungary. Present-day names should be mentioned in brackets to help English readers. I know the objection - the official language of the KoH was not Hungarian but Latin. I think this is not enough reason to use present-day names on the first place because they are anachronistic. It would be even better to use the Latin names although articles about medieval European history don't call London Londinium or Milan Mediolanum. Zello 12:53, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Hát akkor teljesen egyetértünk! :) (For non-Hungarians: we are in complete agreement). That's indeed how I wrote my main contribution, I hope I was quite consistent. People have modified the text since, I have just noticed the problem with Thököly and Vienna today. I may have to do some research and see how the English Wikipedia deals with the issue in other similar situations: I have already mentioned the analogous issues of Danzig/Gdansk and Breslau/Wroclaw, I may think of some others. The Latin issue is not relevant: we are writing in English here, the question is how English-language sources tend to refer to cities in historical texts when those cities have changed countries subsequently. Gsandi 16:14, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

This is a common problem with Hungarian history articles all over English wikipedia because Slovak, Roman and Serb editors don't accept Hungarian names. We should agree with them to avoid edit wars but until now nobody found the modus vivendi. Zello 18:39, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, I have just become aware that there was even an issue here. I do not know whether it's possible to come to a reasonable agreement with some of our non-Hungarian friends over this - I prefer to help in the establishment of a policy that is applied fairly by all. And we have a precedent: Talk:Gdansk/Vote/discussion. If we transpose this policy (established by vote) to the case of, say, Kassa/Košice, we would come up with the following conventions:

For Košice, use the name Kassa between 1000 and 1849, 1867-1918 and 1938-1945. Use Kaschau for 1849-1867 (when there was no Hungarian state as such, the country was (legally) part of Austria).

For Kassa, use the name Košice between 1918-1938 and since 1945.

In biographies of clearly Hungarian persons, the name should be used in the form Kassa (Košice) and later Kassa exclusively.

In biographies of clearly Slovak persons, the name should be used in the form Košice (Kassa) and later Košice exclusively.

For Košice and other locations that share a history between Slovakia and Hungary, the first reference of one name in an article should also include a reference to other names, e.g. Kassa (now Košice, Slovakia) or Košice (Kassa). An English language reference that primarily uses this name should be provided on the talk page if a dispute arises.

Evidently, the same policy can be adopted for Kolozsvár/Cluj-Napoca, Szabadka/Subotica and the like.

I plan to take this further, but for now we should try to use placenames in this particular article following this convention. I take it that Prince Rákóczi was a clearly Hungarian person, since (presumably) he used the title "Princeps Hungariae".

Gsandi 08:44, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

The situation in present-day Poland is not comparable to the situation in the KoH. The official language of the kingdom was Latin, later German, and only since about 1868 Hungarian. Košice has always been called Košice (or corresponding corruptions) in Slovak, Kaschau (or corresponding corruptions) in German or Kassa (or corresponding corruptions) in Hungarian, and has never been renamed by no means. In addition, there was no substantial Hungarian population in the town until the mid-19th century (the KoH, however, had existed for some 800 years before that). Similar logics applies to most names in the kingdom. In addition, using modern names is more comfortable This has been dicussed several times already; it is wrong to make conclusions from the name of a country to the language used. Juro 14:26, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

You say there were almost no Hungarians in Kassa until the mid 19th century? Can you explain why some of the city majors in the 17th century were called Láng János, Tánczos Pál, Almássy István, Wass Mihály, Kőszeghy Miklós, etc, etc, ? --KIDB 17:37, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Firstly, it is highly probable that those are just magyarised names (at that time or later) - I know that from Hungarian texts on Bratislava, where all names use to be magyarized (even present-day names - a globally unique fenomenon, but that's Hungary) - in other words you are lying to yourself in Hungary and it is done so successfully that you start to use that as a argument (nationalism par execellence). Secondly "almost no" refers to the percentage, those who were there were predominantly nobles and nobles used to be mayors and county heads. Thirdly, this is not my invention, that' what Hungarian and German authors of the 19th century are saying. Fourthly, actually this is irrelevant for the name issue, because the argument would not change, and because there percentage of Magyars (not Magyar nobles) was very low in the whole KoH around 1700 (the time of F. Rákóczi) - and I know that you do not learn that at schools in Hungary. Juro 08:18, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

For the 17th century magyar (not magyarised) names I mentioned - Láng, Tánczos, Almássy, Wass, Kőszeghy - please visit the city web site, history section [1] (in Slovakian) --KIDB 08:37, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

There was no "official language" in today's terms before the 18th century, however Latin was used in official documents throughout Europe. Despite the presence of large non-magyar ethnic groups after the Turkish wars in Hungary, most of the free royal cities (including Kassa) had a large Hungarian population throughout the centuries (shared with Germans in this case). This should be discussed at the Košice articel, but this city was "slovakized" only after 1945. There is NO proof of a large Slovak presence in the city before 1918 (except the myth of a slavonic pre-Košice created in the 1950s). In addition this is a Hungarian history articel and if you look a historical map while reading is very confusing to read the today's official names (think e.g. about Stúrovo). As for the cities in Ukraine: I don't think the English user can better read the Ukrainian city names converted from cyrillic.

As for the future, I think the Polish example is relevant, there are a lot of similarities between Kassa/Košice and Danzig/Gdansk, however the history of the Slovak-Hungarian relationship was much more peaceful, than the German-Polish one. That's why I hope we can find a compromise.kelenbp 17:03, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

No, I am repeating this for the 10th time, so the short version: In Germany, they used predominantly German, in Russia Russian etc., in Hungary Hungarian was not used frequently not even by Magyar nobility up to the late 18th century - they used German instead. The reason for this is irrelevant, but it was the multiethnic nature of the country and the past Ottoman occupation. But the point here is a different one - the point is that (1) Hungarian was not more official in the country than any other language (I am "sorry" to inform you on such elementary things) - especially, it was not used at all in towns where there were virtually no Magyars at all and that is the case for almost all towns in the kingdom around 1700 (again I am sorry to inform you on this), (2) that explicit name lists of cities etc. in the kingdom before the late 19th century contain Slovak, German, Latin and Hungarian names as equivalent variants (i.e. Kassovia - Košice - Kaschau - Kassa), (3) that the name version (unless it was Latin) in texts depend only on the nationality of the writer (or rarely on the "very" predominant language of the settlement), (4) that in most cases you do not know the exact Hungarian and other name versions used in 1700 (so that the alleged "historical" name is actually the modern Hungarian name and there is no reason to include it on the grounds of "historicity"). Finally, I remind you that in cases like Trenčín, any Hungarian name is even definitely completely out of place even in brackets, so you can be "happy" that I keep the Hungarian name at least in brackets. Juro 08:32, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, you know, I built up this article from practically nothing, I am not obliged to see what you may have said 10 times in other discussions. If there is a general Wikipedia rule/established practice that is applicable, let's apply it. If there isn't one, we can try to work out a consensus, but if that doesn't work, we can see if we can imitate the process that was used to establish the rule for Gdansk/Danzig.

The first thing we want to do is to be very precise: what are we trying to work out a rule for? Names, as we can see, can be a sensitive issue - I understand the Slovak point of view (presumably that is yours), but there is a Hungarian point of view as well, and it has as much validity as yours. So, what do we want? In my view, we want to see a practicable and fair way to refer to the names of cities, regions and people when there are several possible options. In some cases, there is no problem: a city has a well-established English name, and that is how we will refer to it in the English Wikipedia: Vienna, Prague, Warsaw, Cracow, Bucharest, Belgrade. If there is no such name, but the city has consistently been in one country, again, there is no problem - just call it under its name in the native language: Salzburg, Sopron, Sofia. The actual majority language, now or in the past, of the people in the city concerned is irrelevant - Sopron was German-speaking until quite recently, and it has a good German name (Ödenburg), but so what? In an English-speaking encyclopaedia, the only reasonable name in such cases is the local name as used in atlases and other reference materials.

OK, so now on to the problem of several possible names. First question: in which articles does this matter? Not in the article on the city itself: I don't think that anyone objects to Košice as the only name used in the article on the city itself, or in articles dealing with Slovakia or Slovak history/literature etc. Like it or not, Košice is a city in Slovakia, where Slovak is the only official language, and all English-language reference sources (atlases, encylopedias and so on) will refer to the city under this name only. In the Wikipedia, although not necessarily elsewhere, alternative names are given right after the introduction, and this is a fair practice in my view.

The name issue then comes up only in articles to do with people, historical events and similar issues connected with the history of a country or nation that does not happen to possess the city today. A good example is the article on the German philosopher Immanuel Kant, which says: "Immanuel Kant (22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804), was a German philosopher from Königsberg in East Prussia (now Kaliningrad, Russia)". It would be ludicrous to write in an English-speaking Encyclopaedia that he lived and taught in Kaliningrad.

The situation is analogous with Rákóczi, a major figure in Hungarian history, who considered himself to be a Prince of Hungary and whose life involved visits to cities like Kassa (now Košice) and Pozsony (now Bratislava), both (at that time) cities in the Kingdom of Hungary. The facts that Latin was used for many purposes in Hungary at that time (it was also used in many other countries in Europe) or that the actual inhabitants of these cities may have been German-speaking in their majority are utterly irrelevant. Latin and French were also used as official languages in England until Tudor times - shall we refer to medieval London as Londinium or Londres in the German Wikipedia then?

Basically, the only people who care about the name of Košice/Kassa are Slovaks and Hungarians. And the latter wish to be able to refer to this city as Kassa in contexts that have to do with Hungarian culture and history - just as Germans can refer to Königsberg in connection with Kant, and Greeks (or west Europeans in general) to Constantinople rather than Istanbul when discussing the city before its Ottoman conquest.

One last comment, related to: "Finally, I remind you that in cases like Trenčín, any Hungarian name is even definitely completely out of place even in brackets, so you can be "happy" that I keep the Hungarian name at least in brackets." I really don't understand this at all: do you have some special privileges with Wikipedia that allow you to "keep" or reject a Hungarian name? This sounds rather unilateral to me. In addition, why is the Hungarian name out of place? Are you an authority on what Hungarians call various cities, wherever they may exist?

I think I have said everything I wanted to say. Gsandi 12:22, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

I don't think that we should use present-day names in the history part of the given settlement. It is as much anachronistic as in biographies. But I agree that in the biographies more elegant to use the names in the language of the given person ie. for Slovak people the Slovak names and for Hungarians the Hungarian ones (with other names in brackets). Of course there were bilingual persons with an uncertain ethnicity but it is only a practical problem that needs singular solutions. Zello 17:16, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

There is nothing to add to what I have written above. You have not provided one single reasonable argument, only - like always - Hungarian "feelings". It is completely irrelevant how you "feel" and whether you consider the topis of this article worth 10 monuments or whatoever. And it is completely irrelevant how many Hungarian users you organize to repeat the same things here 100 times; I repeat - there were virtually no Hungarians at the time in question in the places in question, Hungarian was only one of the languages of the kingdom (not to mention the towns in question and not to mention in 1700) and was not used in the places in question; Hungarian replaced Latin as the official language in the 1840s, then it was replaced by German and only in the late 19th century you could argue that we should use Hungarian names. In sum, there is absolutely no reason to use Hungarian names (but I accept that they are placed in brackets); we could use Latin names, but since that would be ridiculous we use the languages that were mostly spoken in the regions in question, which, by concidence, have the advantage of being also the current names in this case, which is more comfortable for the reader. This is very clear. Emotions are not clear. Juro 02:14, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

The later sentence is not true. The population changed a lot in the past hundreds of years. Kassa was a German and Hungarian town, today it is a Slovak one. Komárom was Hungarian but the article uses only the Slovak name. The cities of Szepes were mainly German but they are Slovak now, and I can give you dozens of examples. But Ok - take a look at the Hungarians notice board. Most people are ready to accept Latin names before 1844. You said you are ready to accept them. Latin was the official language. I'll likely look up the Latin names in my library. Then we have a compromise and everybody should be satisfied. Hm? Zello 17:34, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

(1) I have absolutely no problem with Latin names except that I have never seen a text using Latin names in this context, (2) If you set 1844 as the limit, then German must be used after 1849 until around 1868 (I would have to check the last date), (3) Košice, like all big towns in Slovakia (except Komárno) was a Slovak-German town until around 1850, (4) Komárno is an exception in many respects and is not the topic of this article (5) all towns in Slovakia were originally German towns, but around 1700 all of them had a big percentage or majority of Slovaks, Magyarisation started only around 1850 (6) what about the towns in present-day Hungary? - none of them (including Buda, Pest, except Debrecen) had a Magyar majority until around 1850, they were German (and Serb and Slovak and Magyar) towns : are you ready to use Latin names for them too? (I think I know the answer). Juro 00:29, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Can you explain why some of the city majors in the 17th century were called Láng János, Tánczos Pál, Almássy István, Wass Mihály, Kőszeghy Miklós as KIDB wrote? Kassa was a Magyar and German town, and there are similar cases everywhere. Your conception - to put it simply - that the "barbarous" Magyars are not city-dwellers shows a strong nationalistic prejudice. After the Germans the Magyars were the second most urbanized nationality of the KoH with towns like Szeged, Győr, Miskolc, Kolozsvár, Komárom, Kassa.

But this doesn't matter now. I'm ready to use the Latin names in the case of present-day Hungary except some limited cases were the Hungarian name is the common English one ie. Budapest and Balaton.

Between 1849 and 1867 we should use the German names as that was the only official language that time. On the other there are the cases where no Latin name existed mainly in the case of the villages and small towns. That time we should use the language of the supposed majority although we should agree about it somehow. Zello 10:19, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

I have answered your question about the allegedly Magyar names above. There is nothing to add. They simply are Magyarized names of (partly) non-Magyar persons. And since (sic!) anno domini 2006 I had to convert completely Magyarized names of Slovak modern living artists having nothing to do with Hungary or the language back to their true Slovak names in the Hungarian-language wikipedia (which is something I have never seen in any other language wikipedia), I do not wonder that you do not even consider this alternative, because MAgyarising names is so natural in Hunagary that you do not realise that anymore. Not to mention the mentioning of persons like Adam František Kollár and other pure Slovaks as "Hungarians" and under their Magyarised names in the Magyar eletrajzi lexikon etc. etc.

As for the "barbarous" - it is you who said that, not me. Next, as for the ethnic composition: Since we are really repeating ourselves in this wikipedia over the years, let me copy here a HUNGARIAN text from 1883 century from another talk in this wikipedia. Again, there is nothing to add:

...from a Magyarisation book of 1883, written by an ardent Magyarizer for the opposite purposes than I will use it here... The book compares the "success" of Magyarisation by comparing the 1830s with 1883... – what follows are direct quotes -:

• Budapest:
  • Buda 1821: 25 228 inh.: 1100 Serbs, several hundred Magyars and the rest Germans
  • Pest 1829: 62 471 inh.: 1200 Slovaks , 1200 Magyars, , 650 Serbs, 259 Greeks, 100 Romanians (my addition: and the rest probably Germans)
• Transdanubia (present-day western Hungary) 1830: Among the 8 free royal towns there was not a single one purely Magyar town (2 purely German towns, 3 German-Magyar, 2 German-Magyar, 1 Magyar-German-Bosniak)
• Sopron 1830: "a purely German town"
• Györ 1830: "still predominantly German town" (the Magyars were only shoemakers, clothmakers)
• Pécs 1830: Germans and Bosniaks around 50 %, Magyars around 50%
• Bratislava county 1830: Among the 4 free royal towns there was 1 German town and 4 Slovak-German towns, the county did not have one single Magyar town
• Bratislava 1830: 29 674 inh: There were Magyars only among the gentry, "honoration", furmakers, smiths, clothmakers. The theatres played in German, Magyar actors could not make their living even during diet sessions. The language of instrution of the lyceum was German, Slovak, French and English, but Hungarian did not have even a separate teacher. Magyars had to learn themselves their own language, so that they did not forget to speak Hungarian in their own coronation town. (my addition, the lyceum was the highest school in the town at that time).
• Trnava 1830: There were no Magyars in the town, it was a purely Slovak-German town
• Bács-Bodrog county 1830: :3 royal free town, all of them predominantly Serb
• Subotica: 2/3 Serbs, the rest Germans and Magyars ....
• Temesvar 1830: exclusively German, Serb and Romanian, Magyars constituted only a petty fraction
• Arad 1830: Romanians formed the majority, and even the Germans formed a bigger proportion then the Magyars
• Oradea 1830: appr. 50% Magyars
• Slovak counties (Zvolen, Trenčín, nitra, Košice, Nová Baňa, Banská Štiavnica, sklaica, Modra, Levoča ...): Here the author does not even have to mention the numbers of 1830, he only shows the numbers of 1880 (Slovaks in clear majority in all towns even in 1883) and says: "Of course, even if the Magyar element today (1883) is small in these settlememts, even that is a big contribution, because there were no Magyars there 50 years ago.
• And he adds, Slovaks even live in such a Magyar town like Nyíregyháza, where there are 8600 Slovaks living with 13 000+ Magyars.
• Szeged: in 1883, Szeged has assimilated its German, Serbian and Romanian inhabitants. The 1500 German that had lived here, speak Magyar. The Slovaks have been totally magyarised. The only "more Magyar" town than Szeged is Debrecén.
• Author's summary: These data show that the "Magyar element" has won [i.e. between 1830 and 1885] everywhere it came in contact with Germans, Serbs and Romanians. Only towns in Slovak regions were Magyarised less. But even there, the Magyarisation is well visible.

Juro 18:41, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

I strongly disagree. This is an English-language encyclopedia, and the normal conventions of English-language reference sources should be applied in it, unless there are strong reasons not to do so.

In the case of present-day Hungary, the only geographical feature with its own English name is the river Danube. Any other geographical name should be the Hungarian one - in articles about the Netherlands, Sweden or Portugal, the wikipedia uses the Dutch, Swedish or Portuguese names of cities, rivers etc. unless there is an English equivalent, why should Hungary be any different?

A problem arises when localities were transferred from one country to another during recorded history. In some contexts, it is necessary to talk about cities in the cultural zone as they were then, and not as they are today. In historical/biographical contexts in the German cultural zone we may talk about Strassburg, Danzig, Königsberg and Dorpat (now in Estonia), while mentioning that the cities in question are called Strasbourg, Gdansk, Kaliningrad and Tartu today. Similarly, it would be incongruous to talk about Istanbul and not Constantinople when discussing the Eastern Roman Empire.

I really see no difference in principle between the following two sentences:

Immanuel Kant was a German philosopher who spent his life in Königsberg, Prussia (now Kaliningrad, Russian Federation).

and

Rákóczi was a Hungarian Prince who is buried in Kassa (then upper Hungary), now Košice, Slovakia. Gsandi 11:10, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

I can only repeat: The point is, while the official language say in Austria (and e.g. in Bohemia after 1627) was German in modern times, the equivalent in Hungary was still Latin and if you do not accept that, then it still holds that Hungarian was not more official than any other languages, in fact if there was a factual "informal offcial" language, then it was German up to the late 18th century. This is a very special situation not comparable with any other relevant country.

And as for the "English-language conventions" - there are no such conventions: depending on the origin of the text they used as a basis, English texts contain German, Slovak, Magyar, Romanian names (or combinations thereof), because the authors simply have absolutely no idea what the correct names are to be used (because not even local people know that).Juro 18:48, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

You should take into consideration the we cannot use double standards to the territory of present-day Hungary and Slovakia before 1918. It wouldd be anachronistic. So if we use the Latin name about Kassa the same policy should be applied to Veszprém. Of course I would rather use the Hungarian names all on the former Kingdom of Hungary but now it seems to me that Latin is the only compromise that both parties are ready to accept (although not happily). Zello 16:44, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

As I said, Latin names are OK with me. But then we have the problem with texts concerning e.g. 1800 - 1918 etc. (several official languages) and of course the villages. And most importantly: Who will "enforce" this arrangement?Juro 18:57, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Then for the towns and counties with proper Latin name I propose:

before 1844 - Latin names

1844-1849 - Magyar names

1849-1867 - German names

1867-1918 - Magyar names

For the villages and towns without Latin names I propose to use the name most often used by 18-19th century sources and taken into consideration the supposed majority of the population. Although we will have debates probably we can agree case by case doing some research. At first we should try this in practice on the Rákóczi article. If you agree I will list the names here with the solutions proposed by me and we can decide. Zello 20:22, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

As for the villages, this will be very difficult and we are going to complicate things considerably for the multiethnic zones; in terms of what you have said above, I do not agree that we should generally use 19th century names and circumstance for say the 16th century, otherwise I agree. As for this particular article, I do not understand what you mean by "listing the names here", but just do it and let's see :) Juro 22:28, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

I do not agree to the suggestion that Latin names should be used for placeneames in historical articles dealing with Hungarian topics. This is not in line with English-language practice. I happen to be an English-language editor, and as such my opinions do count for something, even if the two of you disagree with them. It is simply not true that there are no English-language standards in existence - the Encyclopaedia Britannica (EB) and the British weekly magazine The Economist have their own style guides, for example, and these publications follow them closely. We do not have to follow EB or The Economist, but it would be advisable to establish a general principle to cover situations such as this article - and as it happens, the English Wikipedia is trying to do that: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (geographic names). Right now, they are into Proposal F, if anyone has anything useful to say, I suggest you say it in that forum. Hopefully, a consensus will be reached, and then we can do something useful (like write and/or translate more articles dealing with subjects that interest us), rather than waste our time with sterile discussions.

I simply do not accept the argument that the Kingdom of Hungary (as it was until 1918) is such a special case that no general principles can be applied to the naming of its localities. Why? Majority languages in cities come and go, official languages come and go. What's more important, the term "official language" doesn't mean much until recent times. French was used for many legal purposes in England until the 16th century - does this mean we should refer to English cities by their French names? As for the majority language, French was the minority language (used mostly by a small urban élite) in large parts of France until the Revolution - are we going to religiously include the Breton, Flemish or Occitan name of a city in an article dealing with the life of Montesquieu?

Final comment on something Juro says: "And as for the "English-language conventions" - there are no such conventions: depending on the origin of the text they used as a basis, English texts contain German, Slovak, Magyar, Romanian names (or combinations thereof), because the authors simply have absolutely no idea what the correct names are to be used (because not even local people know that)." What on earth do you mean by "correct names"? Until standardization arrived on the scene in or after the 18th century, there was no standardized spelling for anything, in any language. The name of the same city, village or person could be written in several different ways. However, we do have standardization today (in Hungary, this means that we should follow the spelling standards established by the Hungarian Academy of Sciences). Should we wish to refer to the city of Celldömölk in western Hungary, it would be confusing (to put it mildly) to refer to it as Czelldömölk, even if that's how it was spelled until a Hungarian spelling reform at the beginning of the 20th century.

I finish by quoting the stated principles that the Wikipedia:Naming conventions (geographic names)/archive page starts with:

"An attempt to work out a simple policy for geographic names in Central/Eastern Europe. The basic assumptions for the policy are:

1. it should be practical: simple, easy to understand and to follow

2. it does not have to be perfect, some controversies will not be avoided"

I claim that using the Latin name is neither simple nor easy to follow.

I shall concentrate on the Naming Conventions discussions from now on, and apply strictly whatever consensus will be reached as a result of its discussions.

Gsandi 12:55, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Do not take it personally, but citing the EB (not only) in this context and above all the Economist (???) is absolutely ridiculous and in general, what you are writing here shows that you have absolutely no idea about the topic (I and Zello do). So please, either come up with at least one usable sentence or just let it be. The things I have written above still hold and "the Economist" does not change them. And for your information, EB - like all (not only) English general encyclopaedias - is a well readable but otherwise a terrible source; also, for example, there is an official US web page (I do not remember the name right now) with current geographical names of the world and it is a big, unsystematic mess - and those are CURRENT names. So do not teach ME about "conventions" in English texts. Juro 10:00, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

I see. You have a better understanding of how to write good English than the editors of the EB and of the Economist? I didn't, by the way, say we should follow either of those standards - I simply said that standards exist, maybe we should develop our own. In fact, the Wikipedia is developing its own, and I intend to follow it when it's established. And I am not teaching you anything, I am not a teacher. Neither am I a Kantian believer in Ding an Sich. I do not think that there is true name for anything. I think that there is, in the case of localities in Slovakia, a Slovak name, a Hungarian name, and a German name. Maybe more than one name in some cases. Gsandi 11:39, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

If you achieve somehow that standard Magyar names are you used in historical articles about the KoH then I'll be very happy of course. Only I have doubts. Zello 13:42, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

In my opinion for practical causes we should use the current official names for each cities (if there is no traditional English name). English wikipedia is not for Slovaks, Romanians or Hungarians, but for guests from every corner of the world. An Australian or Chinese could follow events on map only if we use current official names, even if they are anachronistic. A Brasilian never find Kassa only Kosice. Bye, Laszlo 81.183.150.196 09:55, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Names

List of geographical names in the article

Kassa – simple case, Latin name Kassovia or Cassovia (I propose the first one)

The correct name was regularly Cassovia spelled with a C

Trencsén – Latin name Trentsinium

The name was spelled Trenchinium in the 18th century

counties:

Sáros – Comitatus Sarrossiensis Trencsén – Comitatus Trentsiniensis Nógrád – Comitatus Neogradiensis Szabolcs – Comtitatus Szabolcsensis Szatmár – Comitatus Szathmariensis

The nouns derived from this adjectives are: Saros, Trentsin, Neograd, Szabolcs, Szathmar

The problem with the Latin county names is that they are new (18th/19th century) versions usually derived from Hungarian, and the older versions are very hard to detect in the literature. But anyway, we should use the whole Latin names (after all "comitatus" is even the more correct English term)

Towns without Latin names:

Sárospatak, Regéc, Sátoraljaújhely, Tokaj, Szécsény, Munkács, Ungvár

Only the later names can be problematic:

Ungvár: First mentioned in Gesta Hungarorum as „Castrum Hung” and „Hungvar”. In the beginning of the 14th century „oppidum seu castellum Ungwar”. In 1430 get his town priviliges as „Privililegatium oppidum Ungvar”. 19th century cenuses the town had a strong Magyar majority (1910: 16’919 people, 13’590 Magyar, 1219 Slovak, 1151 German and only 641 Ukrainian). – I propose the use of the Magyar name as it was consistently used in official documents.

Munkács: first mentioned in 1263 under the name „villa Munkach”. According to the Gesta Hungarorum the name is derived from the Hungarian word „munka” (labour). In 1342 mentioned as „castrum Mounkach”. Latin inscription from the castle in 1629: „ Cura et Fide Generosi DNI Ioannis Balling de Gelse Summi Capitanei Arcis ac Praesidii Munkacz”. In the 19th century cenuses the town had a strong Magyar majority (1910: 17’275 people, 12’686 Magyar, 3078 German). – I propose the use of the Magyar name as it was consistently used in official documents, of course with different typographies.

Nagymajtény: I didn’t found medieval sources yet, but the population is exclusively Hungarian in the end of the 19th century (no other nationalities in census). All three important village conscriptions in the first half of the 19th century (Csánky, Lipszky, Fényes) called Nagymajtény or Majtény.

Where is this settlement?

I have found it: 1332-1337 Mochtin (cf. Czech Mochtín), 1348 Mohten, 1387 Mahtyn, 1490 Maythen

and 1553 Maythén, 1601 Maytin, 1773 opp. Nagy Majtény, 1808 opp. Majtény (Nagy-) or Majding (German name). The it is obvious that the adjective was only used from the second part of the 18th century. Zello 17:56, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Mount Bovcar, Podpoloc – local Ruthen names, the present-day names are modernised Ukrainian versions

I am quite sure there is corresponding Ukrainian literature and webpages on these names, but I do not have them and have no time for such research. So, for lack of data, let's take Munkács and Nagymajtény. Therefore just general remarks for the future: What you cite (first mention and town privileges) is actually not sufficient evidence, because many purely Slovak settlements are mentioned under the Hungarian name versions in exactly the same cases too (the first one by coincidence, the second one because the king spoke Hungarian in the 13th century). And as for the population around 1900 - the situation in 1900 and 1700 is completely different in this respect (take Budapest 1830 vs. 1883 as an example), you would have to use censuses (population lists) from the early 19th century at least. Juro 00:46, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

We are looking for the "quasi" official names in cases where Latin names didn't exist. These are the names most often used in official documents. I don't think that ethnicity should be the SOLE criterion although we should taken into consideration as one of the factors. Sooner or later we should collect data about the ethnic history of every towns of the Kingdom of Hungary (it is needed for history sections). It will be much easier to decide about the names when we'll see all their demographic history. Zello 12:33, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

That is theoretically correct, but collecting complete data for 90% of the settlements over the centuries is definitely impossible, even for the big towns. You will find that out yourself (earlier or later). Juro 10:03, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Another point: Shouldn't we ask the Romanian noticeboard (or how ever the page is called) on this topic, as well? Juro 10:06, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Pseudonym?

For a while he lived in Danzig (Polish Gdańsk) under the pseudonym of Count of Sáros.

Was it a pseudonym? After all he was the count of Sáros. Bye, Laszlo

This is an english speaking wikipedia

Thus in many articles I read I saw that translations are also in the article. About a geographical place it is ok to be there, but with names? And anachronisms. Kosice was called Cassovia, then Kassa from 1000 to 1919. All, who wants to know what Cassovia is, he/she simply clicks on it. This is what redirects are for. To avoid anachronisms (in fact the rewrinting of the history, ) No need for translations it into a foreign language. Simply write the name used at that time by the ppl or the place. They used their Hungarian name primarly, Francis II Rákóczi was (as Emmerich Thököly) a ruler so their names shoud stay in english (as the usual practice according to rulers.) --VinceB 09:50, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Hungarian names for places before 1867

As the official language of the Kingdom of Hungary was Latin until 1867 [2], using Hungarian names for cities etc. before this date is anachronistic. Since the Latin name that was used at the time can scarcely be found, we should list all the places with their modern names.Wladthemlat (talk) 16:35, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

You are nonsense. In all the countrys in europe, the offical language was latin( i mean in the roman catholic countrys), in this case in every wiki page, what writed about the history of a country, we must rename the places names from the native language to latin. The offical language was latin in Hungary, but the people are speaked hungarian ( and lots of minorytis can speak hungarian-especially in mixed areas like north hungary, or Erdély) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hungarus1 (talk • contribs) 11:27, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

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