Talk:Minat al-Qal'a

Change of title
Hi. The title is wrong. I guess in Israel somebody extrapolated from the better-known Qal'at Nimrud and came up with Qal'at al-Mina. Or tried to make sense of it ("castle of the port" sounds more logical for a fort than "port of the castle"). But it's Arabic, and Arabs call it Minat al-Qal'a, at leat that's what all serious literature is telling us. Fact. See at D. Pringle, Andrew Petersen, Nicolle, Raphael Patai (links below) and all other trustworthy scholars and researchers. It is possible that a "Khirbet" got lost on the way, which would make it "the ruins at the port with the castle", but that's speculation and goes too far. Plus, Ashdod-on-the Sea has many more ruins than the "recent" Fatimid fort. I would have changed it right away, but I lack the technical skills :)

Also, "Azotus paraliyus" was invented by some WP editor who transliterated from Hebrew and now the Web is full of it. Correct it is "Azotus paralios" (from the Greek word παράλιος), and in Latinised form "Azotus paralius" if smb. dislikes Greek. Don't take it from me, take it from the Israeli scholar R. Patai (third URL here-below, p 145 first paragraph). The "iy" or "yi" and even "yyi" are English attempts to write Hebrew and Arabic words (Ziyon/Ziyyon, Saffuriyeh) and are never needed for Greek or Latin words.

https://books.google.co.il/books?id=-_NbE5obqRMC&pg=PA72&lpg=PA72&dq=Minat+al-Qal%27a&source=bl&ots=7k32VJHeTr&sig=famQmdl4wntJJJ2dKWrJQAPUP00&hl=en&sa=X&ei=agUgVb6mO4WksgHh9IGYBw&ved=0CBwQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Minat%20al-Qal'a&f=false

http://archive.org/stream/TheTownsOfPalestineUnderUnderMuslimRule/AndrewPetersenTheTownsOfPalestineUnderMuslimRule-600-1600_djvu.txt

https://books.google.co.il/books?id=pZwZJpY44LkC&pg=PA57&lpg=PA57&dq=%22Minat+al-Qal%27a%22&source=bl&ots=H2cuovJ_Gy&sig=Ywk56lCxoh7lMTVCLsB28-Ih4iE&hl=en&sa=X&ei=wfMgVeSYJ8KVsAG9woPwBA&ved=0CDUQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=%22Minat%20al-Qal'a%22&f=false

https://books.google.co.il/books?id=kX7YXtI4POkC&pg=PA145&lpg=PA145&dq=%22Minat+al-Qal%27a%22&source=bl&ots=7gHco2IGEQ&sig=P_hv6wocLBZr1Q8VuWzEZDGjvLo&hl=en&sa=X&ei=wfMgVeSYJ8KVsAG9woPwBA&ved=0CEAQ6AEwBw#v=onepage&q=%22Minat%20al-Qal'a%22&f=false

Arminden (talk) 08:48, 5 April 2015 (UTC)Arminden


 * Yes, we need to change it. Survey of Palestine maps always called it, with some spelling variations, "Minat el Qilat (Minat Isdud)".  What spelling for the article title do you propose?  Also, I'm not sure we should capitalise the "al".  Zerotalk 04:34, 23 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Agree about "Azotus paralios" too. Zerotalk 04:36, 23 May 2015 (UTC)

Moved
As per the discussion above, the article name is now Minat al-Qal'a. Now I wonder about the text "sometimes wrongly named Qal'at al-Mina". Is it just a blunder that Wikipedia introduced? If so, we should just delete mention of it rather than perpetrating it as even an extant wrong name. Zerotalk 02:15, 24 May 2015 (UTC)