Talk:Real Audiencia of Panama

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Why do we translate real but not audiencia ? The article Real Audiencia does not translate either. -- Beardo (talk) 21:31, 1 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Hi. The simple answer is because none of the English-language scholarship does. Audiencia is a very specific kind of legal court (with certain executive functions), unique to traditional hispanic jurisprudence. We could translated it as "court"—as someone recently did to the Audiencia of Charcas article (a move I disagree with)—but that would replace a specific name for vague, general one.  Some have proposed translating it as "audience" (see my discussion—again—on the Audiencia of Charcas talk page, but that would be inventing a meaning for the English word "[audience]" that it does not currently have.  I don't think Wikipedia, as an encyclopedia, should be in the business of coining new terms just to adhere strictly to the rule that articles should use English words.  If historians and legal scholars have felt it useful to retain the term "audiencia" when addressing an English-speaking audience, I think Wikipedia could too. As to "royal," I would dispense with it, as most historians do. We are not addressing the audiencias so there's no need for this nicety, but most of the Wikipedia editors have insisted on keeping either "royal" or "real," and I will not oppose them even if this creates a hybrid term. TriniMuñoz (talk) 20:11, 2 October 2012 (UTC)