Talk:Arabic exonyms

huh?
Two paragraphs consist solely of lists of Arabic names, useless to the layman. If these are placeholders for when someone gets around to providing translations, maybe they should be on this page rather than in the article. —Tamfang (talk) 21:25, 25 January 2009 (UTC)


 * ... And the list gets longer but no more enlightening. Are you going somewhere with this, or is that all there ever will be? —Tamfang (talk) 05:23, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Let's enhance the tabular list, providing the place names with the largest difference form the original first, e.g. Greece, Austria. --Anatoli (talk) 21:37, 9 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Better yet, let's not list names which are transparently similar to their translations. That Arabic (like every other language in the world) has names for places known to its speakers, adapted to its phonology, is not interesting.  If a name is not related to its English (or native) equivalent, or its Arabic form either illuminates its true etymology (e.g. Gibraltar) or is an example of false etymology, that is worth mentioning – and explaining.  —Tamfang (talk) 04:37, 5 August 2009 (UTC)


 * i've been editing the pages for two days now, as i found several interesting sources on- and offline. later on, i plan to add the ethymologies of places, where the name of the town arouses interest.
 * Calatayud for example being the "Tower of Ayyub" or Gibralter meaning "Rock of Tariq" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.150.69.179 (talk) 22:17, 18 August 2009 (UTC)


 * You've made an excellent start! —Tamfang (talk) 04:53, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
 * When I deleted a bunch of entries, I left any Spanish names whose etymology I did not know, because they may have Arabic origin. I hope more of those can be filled in. —Tamfang (talk) 04:59, 19 August 2009 (UTC)


 * thank you. the list still isn't complete and needs more editing to be free of misinformation. that'll be done in the following days, especially during weekend. i also plan to add the equivalent in arabic script to every entry as far as possible.
 * after that, my primary objective is to reorganize it by nations, as the list doesn't follow the alphabet anymore.


 * Why not Arabic alphabetical order? "Nations" change over time .... —Tamfang (talk) 18:17, 19 August 2009 (UTC)


 * That could be an option too, indeed. But it may aid the general clarity of the page, as modern cities and their arabic equivalents may be found easier. Generally people don't know the Arabic equivalent yet, and are more generally searching for the modern name.
 * This I think, may be simplified by classifying it by nations, rather than solely by toponyms in alphabetical order.
 * I'm open to every suggestion, but however, we all know that some order still needs to be edited in.


 * I hope people will not come here searching for a name! —Tamfang (talk) 00:01, 20 August 2009 (UTC)


 * i guess your suggestion 'arabic alphabetical order' makes more sense now. After improving the list over the weekend with the necessary editings (f.e. arabic script, as stated above), that'll be done too. Is there something else we can do? - Also thank you for your help in editing the page.


 * I'm quite pleased with how it's developing. I have no further suggestions at this time. —Tamfang (talk) 16:10, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

do these belong, and if so where?
I transferred the 'unclassified' section here from the main article, because it's not clear if any of them are "interesting" in the sense mentioned above. If any of these have known Arabic etymologies, rather than being mere adaptations of foreign names into Arabic phonology, you can move them back (but not in bulk, please!). —Tamfang (talk) 18:33, 29 August 2009 (UTC)


 * some are adaptions but quite a few also have meanings or can be translated, but i don't know what the actual arab translation is. Al-Mazr, Al-Yaq, Najira, Washqah, Malaqah etc. all derive from actual arabic words.
 * i'm currently unable to furthen that research to levels resolving these questions.
 * still these exonmys should be named and classified in the future, definitely not deleted, for example in a section called onomatopoeias of Romanic toponyms (as far as stated). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.150.68.189 (talk) 23:37, 29 August 2009 (UTC)


 * By 'onomatopoeia' do you mean false etymology or what? —Tamfang (talk) 02:16, 30 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Those things are not the same. Onomatopeias are something close to echoism. In this case, "the Arabification of Placenames", the reverse thing as in
 * "Ash-Sharqiyya-->Axarquia" or "al-Bukhara-->Albufeira".
 * But even now, there a several exonmys stated in this list, where the hispanic name derives from, but weren't corrected yet.


 * If by 'onomatopoeia' you mean a word that imitates a sound – in this case, the sound of a foreign word – well, every language inevitably does that with foreign names, so it's not interesting (Wikipedia is not a dictionary). Do you mean Arabic adaptations of Romance names, or Romance adaptations of Arabic names? —Tamfang (talk) 15:51, 30 August 2009 (UTC)


 * The thing is, that a certain number of exonmys hail from romance or visigothic adaptions, but mostly it's the other way around.
 * Right now, there are still several translations missing (Qalat al-Dawaraja, Al-Mudawwar, Al-Yaq, Najira etc.), but even those exonmys, which derive from romance placenames should still be stated, as they are still "Arabic exonyms".
 * That's what this whole article is about.


 * If this whole article is simply about Arabic exonyms in general, then I agree with those who'd prefer to see it (and similar articles) deleted, because the existence of a word is not notable. The policy I propose – listing only those exonyms about which something more interesting can be said – is an attempt to give such articles a good reason to exist.  —Tamfang (talk) 01:17, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

Arab toponyms in Spain
This section is full of obvious errors, some of which I have corrected. Claiming that the Phoenecian root of Cádiz and the Carthaginian root of Cartagena were originally Arabic shows that whoever made this list is an ignoramus. It must be scrapped and rewritten by someone who actually knows something about Spanish toponyms. Banderswipe (talk) 05:26, 22 June 2022 (UTC)

"The Arabized form of its original name …"
sigh, someone didn't read the lede —Tamfang (talk) 06:43, 30 June 2023 (UTC)


 * Talk me out of deleting all such entries. —Tamfang (talk) 20:14, 30 July 2023 (UTC)