Talk:Lech, Czech, and Rus'

Old talk
Can we stop moving the article? Just leave the second comma in, I know it's wrong but some people won't listen.


 * Where do the South Slavs come from then?Cameron Nedland 20:24, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Somebody merged two Polish legends together! 1. One legend is about three brothers Lech, Czech and Rus. They split into three sides of the world and moved on. There is actually archeologic evidence from spread of Pomeranian culture (which is foundation of autochtonic theory) into East, West and South of Europe over Lusatian and Milograd cultures. I never read in my entire life a Polish book claiming that any of these brothers was supposedly moving north and I read lot's of Polish books in my life. 2. Second legend is about founding city of Gniezno, which was found in Poland by small party of Poliany tribe from Kiev, which followed a White Eagle into the Poland and settled down there, where the White Eagle settled down. Polish Poliany tribe united Slavic tribes of Poland and found Polish Principality. 3. Poland was never referred in documents as Lechia, when it wasn't known as Poland, which is something that actually happened much later in Polish history. Poland was known as Slovians'c'yzna or Gniezno Principality. 4. In my personal opinion Lechia was coined in the Eastern Europe and in the Asia, when Poland started spreading its territory to the East and that didn't happen until XIV century. - Pan Piotr Glownia 11:58, 6 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks for clearing that up.Cameron Nedland 01:15, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Archeological Confirmation?
Recent archeology appears to confirm the mythic foundations of the Slavs

The earliest evidence of "modern man" in Europe some 45,000 years ago was located south of the Don River in Russia

From this point -- apparently all of Europe was populated by the decedents of the mythic 3 brothers who were hunting and who followed their prey in different directions: North & East -- Rus; North and West -- Lech; South and West -- Czech

see the link:

[http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/world-news/article2146126.ece Belfast_Telegraph_Article_on_Early_Europeans]

Since they were hunter-gatherers at that point in time and arrived from the East -- perhaps the myth is some "folk memory" {e.g. orally passed down through the 1000's of generations via some ritual} of the process of "modern man's" entry into Europe

--Westhighlander 20:30, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

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Article name
Why it is called like this? It would be bettet to separate all those three personalities as they are not widely know everywhere.--Juan de Vojníkov (talk) 21:52, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Bohemia
The name Bohemia (Čechy) has at least two slightly different meanings. 1) Bohemia proper (historical land - země), which is the "core" of the country and 2) Bohemia as a country/state as a whole, historically Bohemian Crown (Země Koruny české, Corona regni Bohemiae), now called the Czech Republic (it is now called with a modern -sko suffix - "Česko" in Czech to make a clear difference between these two meanings). The former kingdom became the republic and the traditional English name of the "Bohemian" nation (and language) was changed to "Czech" (probably to sound more Slavic and to distinguish it from German-speaking Bohemians). In this case, the second meaning should be preferred since we are talking about founding of "nations", not historical regions or other country subdivisions. Qertis (talk) 18:14, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Are you saying that Praotec Čech founded not only Čechy, but also Moravia and Silesia? — Kpalion(talk) 18:24, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
 * No, Čech is a legendary founder of the Czech (Bohemian) state/nation, which originally (according to historians) encompassed only central Bohemia proper ("land"), later spread to roughly present-day borders of Bohemia proper and later on expanded to other territories (Moravia, Silesia, etc.). These newer acquisitions retained various degrees of autonomy which further varied over time and, while being part of the Bohemian/Czech state (since 14th century known as "Crown"), didn't de-iure become part of Bohemia proper. Qertis (talk) 15:24, 26 January 2010 (UTC)


 * I agree with Qertis, but let me emphasize that the word “Bohemia” (in English) is used only as the equivalent of “Čechy” (i.e., one part of the Lands of the Czech crown or the current Czech republic), never for the whole Czech republic (or Czechia). Ceplm (talk) 14:50, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

spoken word
in the ancient times, the most accurate historical evidence was the spoken word from father to son. in the article in the russian wikipedia "чех, лех и рус", it says that their place of origin was pannonian basin. so, you see. it really is "Behind the carpathians", but from adriatic side. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.126.219.110 (talk) 14:05, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Move
Gbook hits:


 * Lech, Czech and Rus (ca. 90), en
 * Lech, Czech i Rus (44), pl
 * Čech, Lech a Rus (31), cz
 * Чех, Лех и Рус (29), ru
 * Czech, Lech and Rus (23), en
 * Čeh, Leh, i Rus (21), sh
 * Лех, Чех, и Рус (18), ru
 * Рус, Чех и Лех (11), ru
 * Lech, Čech a Rus (7), cz
 * Lech, Čech, and Rus (3), en

--Z oupan 11:57, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

Unclear
I removed the following sentences as it was difficult to determine what was actually meant: "Widest and probably the truth farthest is the Wenceslaus Hajek description (1530s), which adds a range of details, including the exact date of Čech arrival, year 644. He also elevates the two to Dukes and claims that they had already owned a castles in their homeland." Please rephrase before readding. --Khajidha (talk) 11:49, 7 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Hello Khajidha, what is unclear in it? It describes the Wenceslaus Hajek's version of the story. Jirka.h23 (talk) 12:24, 7 May 2015 (UTC)
 * "Widest and probably the truth farthest" is nonsense, the sequence of words has no meaning in English. --Khajidha (talk) 13:10, 7 May 2015 (UTC)
 * First of all, sorry for my bad English. Is the word "widest" or "the truth farthest" nonsense? Is: "longest and probably farthest from the truth" better? Jirka.h23 (talk) 12:19, 8 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Oh, okay. I have rephrased it as "Wenceslaus Hajek's version from the 1530s adds many (probably fanciful) details not found in other sources. According to Hajek, the brothers were dukes who had already owned castles in their homeland before their arrival in the region." --Khajidha (talk) 15:07, 8 May 2015 (UTC)
 * I still do not understand what was unclear in it. Never mind, now I am missing there alleged date of Čech arrival (644). Jirka.h23 (talk) 18:36, 17 May 2015 (UTC)
 * It was unclear because those words would never be used in that manner in English. I was completely baffled as to what it could mean on first reading it. Upon reading your suggestion of "longest and probably farthest from the truth" I understood what you were trying to say. I rephrased it to simplify the sentence construction as it was easy to get lost in all the commas. I'll work the date in if someone else hasn't already.--Khajidha (talk) 12:01, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

Requested move 23 June 2015

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: moved. The English wikipedia uses the English-language common name. DrKiernan (talk) 16:04, 1 July 2015 (UTC)

Lech, Čech, and Rus → Lech, Czech, and Rus – Commonly spelled "Czech", not Čech, as per Google Ngram. See Google Books search results for Lech, Czech, and Rus, which include a book named "Lech, Czech and Rus". On the other hand, few if any English results found for Lech, Čech, and Rus. Khestwol (talk) 05:16, 23 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Do not you think that if you spell Čech as "Czech" it is quite a lot incorrect? It should be spelled as Czekh (i guess asˈtʃɛx), with "kh" at the end not "ch". Your changes may lead to misunderstanding. Jirka.h23 (talk) 10:28, 23 June 2015 (UTC)


 * Support per above. I think "Czech" (not "Czekh") is the correct spelling in English. See Google Ngram for comparison between Czekh,Czech. Khestwol (talk) 11:26, 23 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Oppose. Yes, "Czech" is the correct spelling, but it is a word with another meaning:) Czech - means something or someone from Czechia. Čech - is a mythological person in legends. Therefore it si much more correct to refer to this myth as Čech, because English speaker could then spell this word incorrectly (spelling can be also included for English speakers, like Czekh,ˈtʃɛx). Jirka.h23 (talk) 12:33, 23 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Comment: It is also common to refer to the mythological person of the legend as "Czech". This should have been made obvious from the Google Books search results for Lech, Czech, and Rus, which include a book named "Lech, Czech and Rus". English books don't use the spelling Čech. Khestwol (talk) 14:27, 23 June 2015 (UTC)
 * About which English books are you talking about? This book is in Polish and is entitled Lech, Czech I Rus. Czech in Polish reads like Czekh, thats why there is a word Czech. Please source English books. And also, if we decide to agree renaming, do you want also to change all Čech names? This can be very confusing if we will have in every second sentence word Czech:) (meaning something different). Jirka.h23 (talk) 04:59, 24 June 2015 (UTC)
 * This book is in English and uses "Czech" in title, the normal English-language spelling, but no English book mentioning the 3 brothers spell it "Čech". And no, we don't have to rename anything else because of this other than this article. Khestwol (talk) 05:36, 24 June 2015 (UTC)
 * It is a Polish book published in Warszawa. (Another link.) It is only wrongly translated title into English. Please source English books. And what do you mean "this other than this article"", I do not understand it, title also include his name (Čech). Jirka.h23 (talk) 06:41, 24 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Khestwol, you are incorrect. Jirka is absolutely right, this is a Polish children's book that features the Lech, Czech i Rus legend in the form of a story (it is very popular in my country, I remember this tale from childhood in various other sources). If an English translation of this children's book even exists then it is one from Polish and not Czech, so they are simply using all the original forms in Polish (hence Lech and not Lekh; Czech and not Czekh) and replacing i with and. The correct way of transliterating either of these to preserve the pronunciation would be Lekh and Chekh, but Czech is more commonly used in English. --Samotny Wędrowiec (talk) 16:23, 24 June 2015 (UTC)
 * There are also many other English-language books that use "Czech". Khestwol (talk) 17:18, 24 June 2015 (UTC)


 * Support. as presented in .--Z oupan 13:20, 23 June 2015 (UTC)
 * - And why?:) Did you read any of my reasons? Or just simply follows some meaningless g-hits? Jirka.h23 (talk) 13:56, 23 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Per WP:COMMONNAME. Khestwol (talk) 14:28, 23 June 2015 (UTC)


 * Oppose. Čech is personal name of a mythological person, Czech is nationality.--Yopie (talk) 14:33, 23 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Comment: ...not in English language. The current spelling is common in Czech language, but not in English language books about this legend of the 3 brothers. Khestwol (talk) 15:05, 23 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Sources?Jirka.h23 (talk) 06:41, 24 June 2015 (UTC)
 * See below. Khestwol (talk) 17:18, 24 June 2015 (UTC)


 * Support – This is how the myth is usually referenced in English, though I'm more familiar with "Bohemus" myself. RGloucester  — ☎ 16:40, 23 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Support per Google Books in the English language. Please note, Lech, Bohemus and Rus has zero hits in there. Poeticbent  talk  19:33, 23 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Support per WP:COMMONNAME. Issues regarding the mythological person are actually an argument in favour of renaming the WP:TITLE to Czech as it illustrates the relationship between the mythology and the historical 'memory' of these ethnic groups. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 22:20, 23 June 2015 (UTC)


 * Support per WP:COMMONNAME. The argument that Czech means something different holds ho water. Rus means something different as well, with no problem. Staszek Lem (talk) 23:33, 23 June 2015 (UTC)


 * Oppose: I would support this, but if we're renaming the native versions then isn't Czekh the better alternative? Moreover, going by this idea, shouldn't Lech be changed to Lekh as well? Kh is a common transliteration of the Cyrillic letter Х (pronounced /x/), but an identical sound is present in other North Slavic languages - including Czech, Slovak and Polish - where it is sometimes represented by the digraph Ch. So why don't we change it to Lekh, Czekh and Rus? That way we're also clearly distinguishing between Czekh as the legendary figure and Czech as the English adjective for anything related to Czechia. --Samotny Wędrowiec (talk) 16:08, 24 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Support: Changed my mind after discussing it further down the page with Khestwol; leaving my original response for reference but crossed out. --Samotny Wędrowiec (talk) 00:54, 25 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Comment:, but is Czekh even a word in English? If we are to transliterate phonetically, it would be Chekh, not Czech. We have to use what is the COMMONNAME as title. The Polish variant Czech is commonly recognizable to English speakers as opposed to the Czech-language variant which is rarely seen. Also, even the article itself is using "Lech, Czech, and Rus" in the lede and most of the body. Please see the current lede sentence of the article itself: "Lech, Czech, and Rus refers to a founding myth of three Slavic peoples: the Poles (or Lechites), the Czechs, and the Rus' people (the modern Russians, Ukrainians, and Belarusians)." Khestwol (talk) 17:10, 24 June 2015 (UTC)


 * English-language sources for the spelling "Lech, Czech, and Rus" in reliable books include, among many others:, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . English-language books don't use Čech with the diacritic mark to refer to the legendary character Czech. Khestwol (talk) 17:18, 24 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Once again though, many of these are translations from Polish. Is Czech more commonly used in English than Čech? Of course, but it's not really correct by English standards of transliterating Slavic terms for easier pronunciation and writing. The same applies to using Lech over Lekh (see here and here). This is simply because most of the information about these things is written by Wikipedians from Czechia and Poland who know plenty about the subject matter but may not always be familiar with how it should be transferred to English. That's why we tend to use Ch in terms borrowed from these languages - originally it represents /x/, but in English this changes to /k/, tʃ or even /ʃ/ in some cases. Lekh and Chekh would be the correct forms, Lekh and Czekh would be a compromise between what is correct and what is popular, whilst Lech and Czech is simply the most popular variant. I agree that Lech, Czech and Rus is the better option to use in English than Lech, Čech and Rus, I just don't believe it is the best option. --Samotny Wędrowiec (talk) 17:43, 24 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Well so far I have not found even a single English-language book that uses Čech to refer to the legendary character Czech. Cech yes (rarely), but not Čech. Khestwol (talk) 17:50, 24 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Indeed, I am not surprised. It doesn't contradict what I said in any way. Like I mentioned earlier, Lech, Czech and Rus is better in English than Lech, Čech and Rus, but that doesn't mean it's the best option overall. --Samotny Wędrowiec (talk) 18:00, 24 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Ok, at least you favor the proposed title over the current, thank you. But still we can't use the forms Lekh and Chekh in the title, because they are not COMMONNAME. We can, perhaps, include them as alternate forms in the lede though, just to help English-speakers with the correct pronunciation of "Lech" and "Czech", so that they know ch is not being used for /tʃ/ in these names. We can add them in parenthesis as per WP:LEDE: "If the name of the article has a pronunciation that's not apparent from its spelling, include its pronunciation in parentheses after the first occurrence of the name." Khestwol (talk) 19:07, 24 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Yep, that seems like a good compromise. I'm changing my point from "oppose" to "support". --Samotny Wędrowiec (talk) 00:54, 25 June 2015 (UTC)
 * As Samotny Wędrowiec stated, all of these books are of Polish origin or translated by Polish people. In Polish Czech reads like Czekh. I agree with him that there is a difference in what is correct and what is popular. In my opinion, it is better to use Lekh and Czekh, while Lech and Čech is the most correct option (and kepp diacritics, same as in German, Italian or any other languages). However, if we include an alternate forms to help English-speakers with the correct pronunciation, because this could be very misleading, then I give up and I am not against it. Jirka.h23 (talk) 04:05, 25 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Czech is the COMMONNAME form in the English language, and English Wikipedia is for Anglophone readers, therefore Czekh would be in no way intuitive or recognisable to native English language speakers educated in Anglophone countries. It would be WP:OR to try to nominate a personal transliteration preference from a language other than English simply because it uses Roman script. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 22:50, 25 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Čech is the COMMONNAME form in the English language, look for example at Petr Čech - the very famous goalkeeper of Chelsea. Would you also want to change his name to Czech? This is ridiculous. The best option is to keep word Čech - as this is the person. Also Czech is not the COMMONNAME in my opinion, as this only exits in translated Polish books, and in Polish Czech reads like Czekh. But if you really want go this way, please at least include pronunciation of Čech in the lede. Jirka.h23 (talk) 05:54, 26 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Petr Čech is a specific contemporary individual (not a mythological/legendary individual in the same sense as the "Čech" being referenced in this article). The example you've brought up is also tied in with WP:BLP, therefore doesn't serve as a realistic analogy. I have no particular preferences, nor objections, as to alternative renditions of the nomenclature for this article, therefore I don't see an obstacle for using a couple of renditions for the sake of clarity. Ultimately, however, it's not down to me or my position. At this stage, we're only discussing the WP:TITLE move and not the details if the move is deemed to be warranted. Let's just deal with one issue at a time. Cheers! --Iryna Harpy (talk) 06:13, 26 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Sorry, but I still do not see a difference between contemporary and legendary individual - for me it is just an individual, why should be this taken differently? Here are some English sources for Čech: The Oxford History of Historical Writing: Volume 2 The World Public Library Association, sourced from World Heritage Encyclopedia. Jirka.h23 (talk) 06:48, 26 June 2015 (UTC)
 * The first reference you've cited is an instance you've found via a search in the Czech language. The second instance is taken directly from an earlier version of this article, meaning that it's WP:CIRCULAR content relying on material from Wikipedia as sources. What we are trying to establish here is COMMONNAME and WP:NATURAL. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 23:28, 26 June 2015 (UTC)


 * Support. Č is a Czech alphabet letter, but this myth is shared by many Slavic cultures. But anyway, this was the original name for this until it was moved, w/out discussion, by User:JL 09 here. Revert controversial ninja move. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here  08:23, 30 June 2015 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Alois Jirásek
The section “Czech version” is a bit confusing because it puts together genuine medieval and Renaissance chronicles (Dalimil, Kosmas, Václav Hájek z Libočan) with Alois Jirásek who was a novelist of the late 19th and early 20th century.

Ceplm (talk) 14:58, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

Rus
In the Chronica Poloniae Maioris, where this myth is firstly mentioned, no single word is said about the present day Muscovy, the only Russians in there are Ukrainians. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Noteworthiness (talk • contribs) 20:11, 17 May 2016 (UTC)
 * What is your suggestion about article content? 20:59, 17 May 2016 (UTC)

Brother Mech
Noticed a recent change in regards to Brother Rus having another name of "Mech" that was historically changed. There is no source provided, and I was not able to find any sources on this with a cursory search. Either please add a source or remove. 2001:1C00:1412:9D00:2CDD:A83C:AF51:5D42 (talk) 19:29, 14 June 2023 (UTC)