Talk:Lowland castle

Does this subject exist in English?
Discussion of whether the importation of articles on castles from German Wikipedia into English is appropriate at Talk:Water castle. Cyclopaedic (talk) 10:11, 20 July 2014 (UTC)


 * Very valid point, Cyclopaedic was right, no such English term, discussion continued where he indicated, at Talk:Water castle. This article has no reason to exist. German "Niederungsburg", more seldom "Tieflandburg" and "Flachlandburg", have no English translation. An English Wiki article on strictly German castellology (Burgenkunde) terms seems fully justified, but not this. There are many such "cuckoo's eggs" planted on enWiki by and they have to be looked up, whatever material seems useful should be recycled as suggested, and the rest must be removed. Arminden (talk) 01:31, 11 March 2021 (UTC)


 * How can a subject only exist in foreign languages but not in English? In any case the term "lowland castle" appears frequently in the literature when describing such castles. Go check it out. And lowland castles don't just appear in Germany, so an article on Burgenkunde won't cut it. Bermicourt (talk) 08:18, 11 March 2021 (UTC)


 * Just one example: "the conserved ruin of the Gothic lowland castle ... in the town of Levice" from Castles and Chateaux by Kollár and Nešpor. Bermicourt (talk) 08:22, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

You don't seem to accept an overly clear and well-known fact: MANY terms from one language don't exist in others. German has "zusammengesetzte Wörter", compound words, English largely doesn't. That is a main reason why German has a tendency to create a very minute, detailed set of terms for everything, which simply don't exist in most other languages. Maybe it's a much-discussed cultural thing too, who knows. German culture goes for centralisation and mandatory rules, see Duden - English lacks such binding universal "spelling and lexical laws". Fact. But English does have its various authoritative institutions, which create scholarly terminology and teach it, so making up terms doesn't work. Am deutschen Wesen soll nicht die Welt genesen, German isn't called to create order among a perceived lack of English terms, even if they appear fundamental and much needed in your opinion as a native German speaker. As I wrote, languages & cultures under German influence did adopt some of the terminology, but English hasn't. Kollár and Nešpor are Czechs, and Bohemia was part of the Holy Roman Empire, actually German, for much of its history and it shows. The same adoption of terms seems, logically and as a matter of fact, to be the case for Slovak and Slovenian, possibly to a degree for Hungarian and Polish, less so Romanian. There are isolated cases in Italian (but German-speaking Alto Adige/South Tirol might be the reason) and in French, but really few. The major difference is that in English the words might be used together in a description, for instance in Scotland, where highland and lowland (not just in the capitalised version) seems to be a very relevant topographic distinction, but it's never a standard term. One can say "XY it's a mountaintop castle" as a description, which doesn't make "mountaintop castle" a term, a category used in a repeated and standard manner. There are probably lots of "romantic castles", "remote castles", "hard to reach castles", "bazalt-build castles", "half-ruined castles" in different descriptions, but none of these are castellology terms. It's plain to see, I can't believe you honestly don't see the difference. Arminden (talk) 10:42, 11 March 2021 (UTC)


 * You don't need to lecture us. I've lived in Germany for many years and am well aware of the German tendency to classify and categorise subjects which, I agree, their language appears to lend itself to. Indeed, if you create a compound noun, it almost cries out for definition. Meanwhile the English language tends to use descriptors to qualify nouns rather than jamming them together. That does not invalidate the equivalence. There is no law on Wikipedia or elsewhere that we must slavishly have accepted the word into some Penguin glossary in order to use it as a valid translation. Your examples are simply exaggeration for effect; none of these articles is on a subject that is not well attested in European literature which makes them perfectly valid articles. If your beef is that we shouldn't translate the title at all, but use the German (or Czech or French...) word, then say so and be prepared to justify it. And try not to be so belligerent. Bermicourt (talk) 13:17, 11 March 2021 (UTC)


 * I could support merging articles on terms not existing in English into an article on German castle terminology. It would allow the article to stick to those castles (mainly German) which have been intensively studied by Germans. We could use section hatnotes to direct readers to the German WP's article, since obviously the standard interwiki method wouldn't work. We already have plenty of "glossary of" articles. Glossary of German castellology? Srnec (talk) 00:25, 12 March 2021 (UTC)


 * hi. [5 hrs later: I se that I wrote this with "Water castles" in mind". But it covers both.] If I had all the time in the world, I'd add to your proposal another user-friendly step. Where Bermicourt was indeed onto something, is that there is a de facto corpus of fortifications using mainly water as defence. We should research if the established term of "moated castle" does cover all such places. Moat suggests at first view a man-made ditch, but maybe it's being used in the wider sense. According to the result of that research, we could keep all or most of this article as is under a new title, "moated castle". We should also check the other terms used here, island castle and lowland castle. For the latter concept, "low-lying castle" seems to be the more frequently used English expression. As a piece of info, the fact that man-made ditches and natural water bodies were used, is a valid observation. So if the "moated castle" concept is too narrow, we could simply add to the castle article a classification of types of defensive measures, which would include water as one section - natural, and man-made. Most of this article could then be placed there, or separately as a branch-off article of that main stem-article. Users would reach this page from that. Then the name wouldn't matter much as a search word/point of entry, "water-protected castle" or "water-defended castle" would do (logical, seldom used but indeed used by native English speaking scholars, specifically as a translation for Wasserburg). The castle article is in prose form, with long sections and lots of text. A systematic table on the suggested base would be very helpful for users who are looking for specific topics. This is quite common in any treatise of castellology, and much of the terminology is derived from the main defensive topographic means chosen. The castle article now only discusses the role of castles (residence and/or military, defensive and offensive, etc.), but hardly any technical aspects.


 * Here as much as anywhere, I'm not against the broadest offer of useful info for the user; but I'm in favour of always grounding it on a solid academic base, with respect for existing science, which includes language-specific terminology. Making up terms is counter-productive and wrong.


 * That's how I see it. Just parking everything on a sideline, where hardly anyone bothers to look, is also counter-productive and doesn't raise the usefullness of the Wiki tool. Cross-reference between different Wikis, including glossaaries, is an excellent additional tool. That page though wouldn't need to include all the images, and if you do indeed remove all that's outside the German-speaking countries, Skandinavia, and the German-inspired Central and Northern Europe, the user would miss the fact that this defence method was used on several continents. So both. Arminden (talk) 14:30, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

And the Blitz goes on, so I had to add my bit to the New Battle of England. It's now here: Talk:Ordensburg. Arminden (talk) 01:36, 23 July 2021 (UTC)

Potential sources for the term
It may help if we need confirmation of the English terms to mention a few examples from different types of source. I'm not going to list every one - there are far too many - but it will give a feel for usage.


 * Lowland castle - most common
 * Kollar and Nespor (2008). Castles and Chateaux. "The conserved ruin of the Gothic lowland castle..."
 * Radisics (1975). Hungary, Pictorial Record of a Thousand Years. "...there was however a typical kind of lowland castle."
 * Lacika (2008). Manor Houses "...such as the ruins of the medieval Paric lowland castle..."
 * Enlart and Hunt (1987). Gothic Art and the Renaissance in Cyprus. "The second, constrasting type is the lowland castle... In France this is the commonest of the standard plans for castles..."
 * Kemp (1978). Castles in Color. "A lowland castle in England or France was a different matter..."
 * Dolezal and Dolezal (1981). Central Bohemia. "The ruins of a lowland castle from the first half of the 14th century..."
 * Gieysztor (1971). Mazowsze: krajobraz i architektura "The 14th century castle in Rawa Mazowiecka as well as the castles in Liw near Węgrów and in Ciechanów, both raised about 1429, are examples of the lowland castle - type surrounded by moats and marshes."
 * Vesely (1976). Burgen und Schlösser "STRAKONICE - The lowland castle with an interesting process of architectural development..."
 * Ministry of ... Ancient Monuments and Historic Buildings. (1953). Official Guide "In this year he caused the name of his lowland castle to be changed..."
 * Baedeker (1926). The Rhine from the Dutch to the Alsatian Frontier "...with the ruins of an important lowland castle, built in the 14th cent..."
 * Low-lying castle - less common
 * DK Eyewitness (2019). Back Roads of Great Britain "The low-lying castle has 16 towers and a chapel..."
 * Gravett (2012). The Castles of Edward I in Wales "Beaumaris was a low-lying castle..."
 * Miebach (2000). Rich Heritage, Little Money "Since 1990, more than DM 1.3 million has been invested in the complex, developed over the centuries from a low-lying castle with moats and ramparts which official records first mentioned in 1273."
 * _ (1949). Country Life, Vol. 105. "The low-lying castle at Berkhampstead always had elaborate water defences..."
 * Christmas (1914). King George of Greece. "The low-lying castle of Preveza is not very formidable;"
 * Plains castle - least common
 * _ (1983). Kodansha Encyclopedia of Japan, Vol. 5. "It is a representative example of the plains castle (hirajiro; see CASTLES)" and Vol. 1 "The layout and building formation represented a transition between the mountain castle and the plains castle."
 * Barber (1984). The Penguin Guide to Medieval Europe. "Fuensaldaña, just outside Valladolid, is an unfinished square 'plains' castle of the same type as Peñafiel, though here there are small gunports."

Only the first two terms appear in an ngram viewer search of English-language books. Hope that helps. Bermicourt (talk) 09:04, 13 March 2021 (UTC)


 * ...and again, the vast majority are non-English authors writing about non-British castles and chateaux, with some exceptions who are - and those are using "low-lying", not "lowland". Whose country is the Ministry? Thanks, Arminden (talk) 10:59, 13 March 2021 (UTC)


 * So what? That's the subject of the article! Surely you're not saying the only reliable sources are British?! Or that articles are only valid if they're about Britain?! I think a lot of Wikipedia editors might have something to say about that! Oh, yes, and BTW the Ministry is British, ... Bermicourt (talk) 13:30, 13 March 2021 (UTC)