Talk:Lake Sevan

Comment

Lake Sevan, formerly known as Gegham in ancient times, was never referred to as Gokcha (or Goktscha) by the inhabitants of Armenia. Gokcha is an informal name given by non-Armenians and is not recognized in any official manner. --4.42.6.234 22:11, 11 July 2005

Yes, Gokcha is the Turkish name for the lake, never used by Armenians themselves. However, the name was prominent enough to appear in numerous English, German and Russian literature, historic texts and maps. For example, a species of fish endemic to the lake was named the "Gokcha barbel", with the binomial name Barbus goktschaicus, these names remaining official to this day [1]. Overall, there is enough usage of the term in Western languages to justifiy a mention in an English encyclopaedia article. Even the Great Soviet Encyclopedia lists Gokcha as an alternate name [2]. --Aramգուտանգ 13:57, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

I'm sure everything in the Great Soviet Encyclopeadia is absolutely historically accurate. Lake Sevan was known by many other names as well, especially in ancient Greek and Roman sources. If we were to mention the name of the lake in every source one encounters, the whole page would be filled with former Sevan names. If we're going down that road, we might as well refer to every place-name with a Turkish name that's referenced in sources. Also, just because a species of animal is named a certain way, does not validate it's common use. Finally, because of the insistence of so many to call Sevan by its non-Armenian name Gokcha, the new Google World service (3D maps of the world) has mistakenly referred to Sevan as Gokcha. --4.42.6.234 18:21, 12 July 2005

Since this is an English encyclopaedia article, it should list any alternate names that have a reasonably high rate of occurence in English language sources, irrespective of their official status. The fact that even Google mistakenly uses the term Gokcha shows that there is reasonable likelyhood that someone will look up the lake in an encyclopaedia using the name. The fact that it's mentioned in the article helps people recognise that it is not the official name, rather than be confused by its absence. P.S. Plase sign your posts in the future by typing ~~~~. Thanks.--Aramգուտանգ 04:49, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

Geycha

I added the rendering "Geycha" because someone used it in the article Siunik. -- Beland 15:08, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

The Azeri name

I don't quite follow your logic, Hakob. I see the Armenian name at Kars, Van, Diyarbakır, Yozgat, and even İzmir—all of those cities are situated in the Republic of Turkey, so are they unnecessary as well? I don't recall their being a Wikipedia rule that states historical names can't be mentioned in articles. —Khoikhoi 01:44, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Me neither. So can I now add the Persian and Armenian names for Ganja? Hakob 09:29, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Go right ahead... —Khoikhoi 00:21, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Lake Sevan was never part of Turkey or Azerbaijan. History shows this. Therefore, the names should not be included. Names in other languages should only be applied if a certain region was part of country at one point. -- Clevelander 23:28, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

We surely do not follow THIS rule when we use names such as Leghorn for Livorno or Cologne for Köln or Moscow for Moskwa.Cosal 01:20, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry, my mistake. I didn't mean to say "place names," I was thinking of something else. It's fixed now, though. -- Clevelander 01:38, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

So we should also remove the Armenian names from Rize and İzmir? They were never part of Armenia —Khoikhoi 01:45, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Rize was part of Byzantine Armenia and Lesser Armenia (not to be confused with the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia). The present-day Rize province even includes the Hemşin (or Hamshen) region where the Hamsheni Armenians orginated from. You're right about İzmir, though. It was never part of Armenia. Its only significance to Armenian history was its noteworthy Armenian population which greatly contributed to Western Armenian culture. -- Clevelander 01:52, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Ah, I didn't know that. My point is that there is no rule for including or not including historic/alternate names. —Khoikhoi 02:08, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

I see where you're coming from now. -- Clevelander 02:11, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Fine by me. :) —Khoikhoi 02:14, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Gokcha

The article states that Gokcha was a former name. Shouldn't it be changed to alternative name? Correct me if I'm wrong. Vartanm 03:04, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

I added 4 references to the name of lake being Gokcha. In light of magnitude of references on Google and JSTOR using this historical name, it should be kept where it is, instead of removing it. Sevan name of the lake was only on the maps in 20th century. Atabek 07:15, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

hmm, I may have been wrong on Gokcha. I simply editted a little, took out 2 sources and removed the Goycha spelling, as it's hits are almost exclusively Azeri sites dealing with claiming this land, and the spelling was not used previously.Hetoum I 03:19, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

I removed the Azeri language template from the name Gokcha. It was the name applied by Turkic invaders to the Gegham Sea. Modern inhabitants of Azerbaijan got nothing to do with it.-- Ευπάτωρ ^Talk!! 15:34, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Right after the paragraph about urartian inscriptions: Later the lake was for a long time known as Gokcha is POV. This toponym is used in presented selective sources from late 19th century. Then selecting a single word later (since when, nothing about it mentioned in surce) from one source and based on 3 other sources from late 19th century it's concluded: "Later the lake was was for a long time (since urartian times) known as Gokcha". Must be reformulated and presented coherently with sources. "In some 19 century sources(references here), the lake is referred as Gokcha". The content must be based on sources. Here a POV is presented and then sources used unsuccesfully to back it up Hayordi (talk) 15:35, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

I agree, the sentence should have that part removed. instead i think we should include during which time period, "from X century to X century it was known as Gokcha" or something to that extent. The current sentence is not correct. Ninetoyadome (talk) 20:39, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

Two of the sources are taken from late 19th century russian encyclopedic dictionary, which defines it's meening at time of beeing (late 19th century), where it also mentions it's armenian name Sevanga exclusion of which is POV. The third one is an atlas of empirial russia from 1882 (again late 19th century). No more than that should be reflected in the content. Encyclopedia Iranica does not provide any aditional information, and can be excluded. The appearance of name Gökçe-deniz(blue sea) in some turkish book of 16th century is irrelevant here. Hayordi (talk) 23:17, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

• The map is not from "empirial Russia" (I assume you mean Imperial). It is an Edinburgh-published map where all toponymy is given in English (take a better look: [3]), so your formulation of the sources as "Russian" is incorrect. This was an internationally known term, otherwise how can one explain the Turkic name appearing on European (French and English) maps from 1790 (taken from here [4]), from 1775, from 1771 and from 1675?
• The name cannot be Russian, because it appears in the 17th-century travel records of Kâtip Çelebi (translated by Papazian, an Armenian historian; the words in parenthesis are translator's notes, they do not appear in the original text): "Река Занги (Раздан) вытекает из моря Гёкча (озера Севан), расположенного на севере, достигает Ревана и недалеко от крепости Баязет сливается с Араксом" [5]?
• "Some Turkish book" is a twelve-volume medieval epic of the Oghuz Turks which you should probably get acquainted with before making such bold and ignorant statements. You cannot discard a source because it is Turkic. Needless to say, the 16th-century manuscript was translated by one of the most prominent Russian Orientalists, Vasily Bartold, who was the one who stated that Gokcha mentioned in the text refers to the present-day Lake Sevan. The translated version with Bartold's commentaries is found here: [6].
• The term Gökcha and Gökcha-Daniz referring to the surrounding of the Lake Sevan appears in the 1504 order of Ismail I: [7] (see the commentaries), taken from here.

All in all, we have sources from as early as the 16th century and as late as the 20th century where this lake is referred to as Gokcha. Parishan (talk) 01:55, 22 March 2015 (UTC)

First of all do not misinterpret my words.

• It's a atlas of Imperial Russia, it doesn't say from Russia.
• On from 1790 (taken from here [8]) you referred to, it appears as Sevan. You better check your own sources.
• You present selected maps, where toponyms are are presented exclusively in turkish, from turkish POV.
• Kâtip Çelebi and Book of Dede Korkut are turkish sources, did I doubt that? In eastern Anatolia almost none of the former more than 12000 Armenia native toponyms exist anymore. Did I doubt that turks rename Armenian toponyms? Gokcha was neither local nor official name. It's foreign, not english, but a turkish name, and shouldn't be included in the article at all. Hayordi (talk) 11:51, 22 March 2015 (UTC)

• How exactly does the fact that this is an atlas of Imperial Russia speak against my wording?
• I do check my sources: on this map you can clearly see to the right of the lake the words "Gheuksha ou Eau bleue" which in French means "Gokcha or Blue Water".
• Those maps are not Turkish (Turkey at the time did not use the Latin alphabet). They are were published in France and England in the 17th and 18th centuries. I suggest you take another look: 1775 (this map was designed by Paolo Santini which does not appear to be a Turkish name), 1771 (this map mentions Meridien de Paris at the bottom) and 1675 (this map mentions John Speede as its author at the top). What made you think they were "Turkish"?
• Renamed or not renamed - this was the toponym that many sources used to refer to this lake. Turkish "renaming" does not undo the historical significance of the toponym and does not explain why it was used by the Shah of Iran in 1504, long before the Ottoman Empire had control of the Caucasus. It does appear as a universal toponym, after all. Parishan (talk) 00:18, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

On at least two of your referred maps also the native name Sevan appears. Where did I claim maps being turkish? I stated that toponyms on the map are almost exclusively turkish. Concluding on selective sources that this name was universal is POV. One thing that is undisputable is that Gokcha is a turkish topnonym, isn't it? Turkish, not Armenian, hence foreign not native. Hayordi (talk) 12:38, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

I do not understand your argument of a toponym being "almost exclusively Turkish". How exactly does that exclude this toponym from being mentioned? Sevan is an almost exclusively Armenian toponym and Lychnitis is exclusively Greek toponym. So what? It was an alternative name that appeared in third-party sources. Your argument about "selective sources" is irrelevant - it would only apply if I wanted to replaced "Sevan" with "Gokcha" altogether, whereas I am only showing that there existed an alternative name, and "selective sources" are not prohibited in this case, and neither is "non-nativeness", whatever that means. Parishan (talk) 20:13, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

Sevan is Armenian, native, official toponym. Greek at least was used extensively in Armenia at some point. I'm not sure whether Lychnitis was official at any point. But Gokcha is established to be Turkish, hence foreign. Sure throughout last millenium Armenia has been invaded by several turkish tribes. So did several European contries by Russians. But imposing turkish names as historical names in Armenia is as ridiculous as imposing Russian names as historical German toponyms. Hayordi (talk) 20:49, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

I do not follow your argumentation. Where exactly do Wikipedia rules state that only "native" names should be mentioned and all the other historically relevant ones ignored? And what makes you believe that Greek was used in Armenia any more "extensively" than Turkic languages spoken in Armenia for a thousand years? Parishan (talk) 05:05, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

WOW! Turkic language spoken in Armenia for 1000 years? Turkic langage has never been an official/unofficial language in Armenia. If you mean that several invading forces where turkic speaking, that's another deal. There are a lot of Greek manuscripts in matenadaran writen by Armenian historians, which was common during meadle ages and before that. I've seen them personaly. So greek was at some point commonly used language by Armenians. My point is that Gockcha is neither alternative nor official name, if not simply Turkic. Your original edit in article was that the name of the lake was for a long time known as Gokcha. That was reformulated. We can reformulate it as:

"Turkic and some ottoman era sources refer to it as Gokcha". That's a common ground. Hayordi (talk) 13:30, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

No, it is not. The sources above show that the term Gokcha appears in French, English, Russian and Persian sources of the medieval era, not only in Turkish. Add a Latin source to that as well: Barbus goktschaicus. The "official vs. non-official" or "invader vs. non-invader" dichotomy is completely irrelevant here. They idea of "official toponymy" did not even exist at the time. And I do not understand why you keep making "invasion" references in every single message - they do not determine the historical relevance of toponymy one bit. Like it or not, Turkic was spoken in what is now Armenia for centuries, including in the immediate neighbourhood of the Lake Sevan where the Turkic-speaking population formed the majority until the late 1980s. As for the Greek name, there is no evidence that Armenian scholars writing manuscripts in Greek used the name Lychnitis to refer to Sevan. Parishan (talk) 00:37, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

Just some remarks. Medieval era is by definition 5th to 15th century. So none of your presented sources are medieval. Russian translation of turkish souce doesn't make it a russian source. "in the immediate neighbourhood of the Lake Sevan where the Turkic-speaking population formed the majority until the late 1980s"? Where did yo find that? I didn't deny that turkic was spoken in Armenia, but only buy turkic foreigner at some point, just like Russian was spoken buy Russians invaders in Germany after it's capitulation in WW2 Hayordi (talk) 04:16, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

Brockhaus and Efron is an original Russian source, not translated from Turkish, and it lists Gokcha as the primary name for this lake, specifying that the name Sevanga is only used by Armenians.

The earliest source at hand that mentions the toponym Gokcha is the 1504 Persian document, so we could precise the period as "...known as Gokcha at least from the early Modern era".

I do not know what you mean by "Turkic foreigner at some point", but the territory we call Armenia today had permanent Turkic-speaking settlements for centuries until the beginning of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict; and I am not sure what exactly you are trying to disagree with here. Parishan (talk) 05:37, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

If you (as a matter of speech) travel to foreign country and settle there, then you're a foreigner. That's what I meant with a foreigner. "nown as Gokcha at least from the early Modern era", "for a long time known as Gokcha". Isn't that POV. The historical names are provided in the article, Gokcha was used in selective, primarily Turkic sources, e.g. Kâtip Çelebi, Book of Dede Korkut. Even though these where translated into Russian, it doesn't make them Russian sources. Brockhaus and Efron dictionary is original Russian source, which itself refers to turkic sources, e.g. Ср. М. Гульельми. Even in two of your selective maps Gokcha is used in addition to Sevan: from 1775, [on this map]. Hayordi (talk) 15:41, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

I do not know what your definition of a foreigner is, but by your logic everyone is a foreigner, because the humankind, including ancestors of Armenians, originates in East Africa and are therefore considered 'foreigners' on every other continent. In any event, this does not constitute an argument. There is absolutely no rule on Wikipedia that would demand the use of 'native' names only (we have examples like Lviv), especially when 'native' does not have a clear definition. What exactly makes the Azeri population of the Erivan Governorate 'non-native'?

It does not matter if the sources were Turkic or not. It matters that this name existed and is historically attested. And the fact that it appears outside of Turkic sources (Persian, Italian, French, English, Russian) only reinforces the fact that 16th to 19th centuries travellers were aware of the existence of this name and considered it relevant enough to include it in their maps.

'Гульельми' is not a Turkish source, it is the Russian spelling of the Italian name Guglielmi. Parishan (talk) 15:21, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

Listen Hayordi, Gokcha is a former name of the body of water now known as Lake Sevan. Anyone who knows anything about the geography or history of Armenia knows that. The name Gokcha (or slight variants of it) appear on numerous different 19th century and earlier European maps. I am not a supporter of adding ethnicity claims to place names, and it would not have been just Turkish speakers who called it Gokcha. There just needs to be a mention in the article's intro that a former name of the lake was Gokcha and what that name means. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 23:47, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

Etymology

this article says: Later scientists found that "Suinia" or "Tsuinia" means "lake" or "basin" in Urartian. / also sue = "lake" in Urartian language. Van < Biainili , the same -van part here? Böri (talk) 11:24, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Size of the lake

Does anyone have a recent citation for the dimensions of the lake? The infobox says that the lake is 78 km at its longest, although it does not cite a source (the length and width are not listed in the "Lake Sevan: Experience and Lessons Learned Brief" cited elsewhere). I examined the recent satellite imagery in Google Maps and the lake does not appear to be longer than 73 km. Has it shrunk since 2005? If so, is the 2005 figure for the lake area (940 km²) cited in the infobox now inaccurate? Ketone16 (talk) 20:58, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

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Fish

I miss some information on where the current fish and plants found in the lake come from, if it is only 30,000 years old. I understand that some have been introduced recently by humnas. What about the rest? Are they descendants of river fauna and flora? --Error (talk) 19:56, 27 June 2020 (UTC)

Turkic name in the lede

As our fellow also mentioned about consensus, today I add this discussion to talk about the possibility of adding a Turkic name of Lake Sevan which could be easily find in 19th century sources (Gokcha) in the lede of this article.

I don't think it is problematic because some places on the shore of Lake Sevan was predominantly inhabited by Turks, Tatar, or Turkic people prior to the 20th century. They formed a predominant inhabitants not just for one or two decades.

Adding a Turkic name to article like Lake Sevan will not undermine its location within a territory of Republic of Armenia which is acknowledged unanimously by international community.

There was no consensus reached that outlawed putting Turkic name in the lede of Lake Sevan. There was a discussion back in 2015 or 2016 and it ended with no consensus, just a debate whether Turkic was invader or not, foreign or not, etc. Mfikriansori (talk) 07:39, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

Lake Sevan has several alternative names besides your favorite, Sea of Gegham or Lychnitis as two examples.

Oppose to your proposal once again per MOS:ALTNAME: "If there are three or more alternative names, or if there is something notable about the names themselves, they may be moved to and discussed in a separate section with a title such as 'Names' or 'Etymology'." An etymology section already exists with multiple alternative names. ZaniGiovanni (talk) 12:21, 20 April 2022 (UTC)

Do we need a new map?

The aerial view does not match the map at all! The lake is much thinner in the aerial view and has a much bulging “belly” in the map! 82.36.70.45 (talk) 14:19, 21 September 2023 (UTC)