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Name

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The English name for Kortrijk, is it not Courtray? David Descamps 12:19, 31 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It was indeed Courtray some time ago, but that term is no longer much used by English speakers. Just like Peking gave way to Beijing and Mechlin to Mechelen, I think it is correct to leave Kortrijk as is in this article (see Talk:Bruges#Bruges/ Brugge and Talk:Brussels-Capital Region#Names Survey for the related debates that are currently going on). LVan 14:33, 31 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
If you look at VUB website, you can read «Previous studies from the V.U.B. in charge of the European Community reveal that the wind-rich zone in Flanders is situated at the West side of the geographical axis Courtray-Ghent-Antwerp.». English should always be prefered in WP:EN, like Dutch terms in WP:NL, French in WP:FR, ... Yours, David Descamps 06:55, 31 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Official websites like Izegem's and Deinze's use Courtray in their English versions. David Descamps 12:21, 1 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
This is a follow-on discussion started on commons:User talk:David Descamps. The en:wikipedia language policy states that the primary reference for language use is a good encyclopedia, such as the Encyclopædia Britannica, which states clearly Kortrijk, Brugge en Veurne, the other names are only redirects and Courtray is unknown by it. Don't use belgians that try to speak English as a reference. --Foroa 12:32, 1 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
For the English Encarta pretty much the same, although for Ghent, Ypres, Antwerp and Ostende, the encyclopedias don't always agree. None of them know Courtray, which seems to point to an attempt to make Courtray more English sounding. By the Way, near Paarl, South-Afrika, there is village called Courtrai (clearly inspired by Kortrijk, I visited it). So ar, no serious reference identified that could legitimate the use of Courtray. --Foroa 14:34, 1 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Britannica states Brugge and commune's website uses Bruges? Sounds very clever indeed... David Descamps 13:25, 1 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
If we're going to use official websites as reference, see: http://www.kortrijk.be/, which uses Kortrijk on its English page. And a (very rough) Google search: Googlefight (Kortrijk beats Courtray by a factor 263). Same for Google Scholar: far more Kortrijk than Courtray. I think Courtray is rather archaic. Beter to move it back to the Dutch name. Markussep Talk 13:37, 1 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The website of the commune doesn't seem to be well translated in English : they don't use "Lys" for the river... Courtray is not archaic, it is just not very used because Kortrijk is not well-known anymore. English-speakers use too Courtrai but surely it is also too Frenchy... David Descamps 14:09, 1 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Er..., but, if "Kortrijk" is clearly more used in English than "Courtray", why don't we use "Kortrijk" then? I don't understand your remark about Kortrijk not being well-known anymore, it's not a dead and forgotten city. Markussep Talk 14:23, 1 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Till one day ago, this page was the "Kortrijk" page and there was hardly a reference to a geographical entity named Courtray. Almost each occurence of Kortrijk has been changed to Courtray by now. --Foroa 15:26, 1 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
@Markussep: indeed, Kortrijk is the official name (as all have official names, one language or bilingual, as officially published by Royal Decree). Courtrai is a well used and well known (though not official) French version. Other versions are either or both archaic (or historical, before standardization) or not used. The official site is quite clear on this: both Dutch and French are used; other names fail against WP:UCN, be it in German, English, or whatever, and are cleary neither common neither current ... --LimoWreck 16:12, 1 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
We can do a google fight between "Battle of Kortrijk" and "Battle of Courtrai" and see what is the ratio... Official website doesn't decide anything about how people name things. There is no royal decree in England to decide if French can or cannot use Londres for London. It's just stupid etatist elected by stupid people making stupid laws. David Descamps 18:36, 1 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I just took my 2002 Times Atlas of the World: it names the city Kortrijk (where it does name Gent Ghent and Brugge Brugge). My 1951 Oxford Atlas does the same as well as my 1993 Rand McNally Atlas of the World. So let's use English and use Kortrijk. Electionworld Talk? 18:55, 5 June 2007 (UTC) 18:53, 5 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names compiles names from various respected atlases, gazetteers, geographic dictionaries, and encyclopedias and lists the various spellings and denotes if they are historical, present, vernacular, or language specific. Courtray is not even listed. The English (and French) spelling is Courtrai, and the Dutch is Kortrijk, but this name is also listed as the general preferred name, which is a default, and often used as the official spelling in library records. Columbia Gazeteer also does not list a Courtray as a used spelling, nor does the Gazetteer of the United States Board of Geographic Names, which has listed a multitude of present and historic spellings. Perhaps this is purely a Britishism? Meateatingvegan 16:58, 8 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I removed some more references to "Courtray" in this article, please stop doing this or explain on this talk page why you think this is necessary before re-adding it. We definately can't change the way we refer to the city in the middle of the article, and "Kortrijk" is by far the most common way to refer to Kortrijk in English. --Lamadude (talk) 21:36, 10 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

To : Lamadude Kortrijk sounds more flemish than english. As a Flesmih, you should beware of your nationalism. By the way, Collins says Courtrai in British English : https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/courtrai

A lot of names and words are similar in british and french. Don't be silly because of that. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A01:CB11:42:CC00:FC6C:6DE3:4687:8384 (talk) 00:16, 21 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Pictures

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I noticed that somebody added a lot of pictures. While they are nice, maybe we have too many of them now? (relative to the size of the article) or maybe we should group them at the bottom of the page in a picture gallery? Anyway, just a thought --Lamadude (talk) 21:18, 10 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Tourist features

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The 1302 museum strap line on their English literature is 'seven centuries in one day' and not 'one day, seven ages'.

The Beguinage doesn't 'take one back to the Middle Ages' as although it was founded by Joanna of Constantinople (daughter of the Count of Flanders who became Emperor following the 4th Crusade) the houses are 17th century. 

   86.9.250.52 (talk) 14:32, 28 July 2009 (UTC) Graham 27/07/09[reply]
I've made changes to correct this, don't hesitate to make changes yourself if you see mistakes in the article --Lamadude (talk) 18:57, 2 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]


Kortrijk vs Courtrai

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The Google Books Ngram Viewer's statistics are very clear about this issue https://books.google.com/ngrams. In regard to the use of the term in English, these are the results for the last year available, 2008

  • Kortrijk = 0.0000025814 %
  • Courtrai = 0.0000047454 %
  • Courtray = 0.0000012675 %


These are the peaks of their respective use

  • Kortrijk (1998) = 0.0000042512 %
  • Courtrai (1918) = 0.0000363588 %
  • Courtray (1808) = 0.0001120049 %


The most common term, in English, today and over the recent past is Courtrai. The variant Courtray, is one very oldfashioned, and the new Kortrijk is not as common as Courtrai.

As a consequence, I propose to rename all the article to Courtrai,

--Bentaguayre (talk) 01:53, 12 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Look Francophones stop spiking English-speaking wikis with your linguistic imperialistic bollocks. Historically, the English spelling for Kortrijk, was either: Cortrick or Cortryck NOT the lateryear spelling: 'Courtray' and utterly a big fat NOT for: 'Courtrai'

Bytheway, how comes you yourself Bentaguyre, are not proposing a renaming of the 'Battle of Steenkerque' wiki article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Steenkerque to it's historic/and nowadays English spelling: "Steenkirk" cf. "Dunkirk" ?

Indeed, why don't you propose a true Francophone spelling for both Kortrick, Steenkirk and Dunkirk, something like: 'Eglise de Pierre' / 'Estincirque' - you Francophones too lazy or something?

Anyway, Francophones, stop being imperialistic trolls on wikipedia. You little monkeys. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:C7D:411:1600:226:8FF:FEDC:FD74 (talk) 10:22, 28 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Throughout the entirety of the article, the town is referred to as the French "Courtrai", yet the article's title is in Dutch/Flemish: "Kortrijk". I propose that one be selected to be used throughout the article and as the title of the article. NipponGinko (talk) 17:38, 11 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

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