Talk:Sambia Peninsula

Samland
I do think that "Samland" should be the principal name of the article (with a re-direct from "Sambia"), rather than the other way around, since "Samland" is by far the more frequently-used English-language name. -- Picapica 11:31, 16 July 2005 (UTC)
 * I concur. Olessi 01:50, 14 September 2005 (UTC)


 * I too agree. In any case 'Sambia' appears to be a Polish word. Samland was never in Poland. Samland appears on every map I have ever seen, from the 15th to the 20th century. Christchurch 08:00, 14 April 2006 (UTC)


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the . Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

no consensus. &mdash; Nightst a  llion  (?) Seen this already? 12:00, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Requested move
Sambia → Samland – "Samland" is used more in English publications about the peninsula, while "Sambia" usually refers to unrelated topics.

Survey

 * Add *Support or *Oppose followed by an optional one-sentence explanation, then sign your opinion with  ~


 * Support as originator. Olessi 14:28, 14 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Support; see my comment, above, and below in Discussion.Christchurch 19:19, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Support, since more common--Aldux 18:52, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Oppose. The peninsula is in Russia. The Russian name is Sambia. --Ghirla -трёп- 08:42, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Could you correct the current Russian listing and add the Cyrillic spelling? It is currently "Semlyandsky poluostrov", a variation of Samland... Olessi 23:25, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
 * My knowledge of Russian is limited, but it seems both Самбия (Sambia), Самбийский полуостров, Земландский полуостров (Semlyandsky poluostrov) and Калининградский полуостров are in use. The first of these seems to be more common, at least according to Google. There might be a distinction between Sambia the historical region and Semlyandsky poluostrov as a geographical feature.  Some of these names might be used in historical contexts only.  Can anyone shed more light on this? Balcer 04:13, 20 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Oppose - per Ghirla. Balcer 22:08, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Oppose - Russian, Polish, Latin and English names are Sambia, no need to change it to German name here.  // Halibutt 22:14, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure why you think that "Sambia" is English as I indicated below that Samland is used more, but I would support keeping the article at Sambia if that is the current Russian name for this Russian peninsula. Olessi 23:41, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Discussion
While Sambia is the peninsula's name in Polish and Latin, the traditional German name Samland has been used more often in English-language publications. Google searches indicate that Sambia is used as a different spelling of Zambia, can refer to the Sambia tribe of Papua New Guinea, or could mean Sambia, Comoros.

Because most regular Google searches are clouded by the results from the aforementioned other uses, the following are some Google Books and Google scholar searches.

Google Books: --
 * Samland: 2,240 (258 actual results, some in German)
 * "Samland Peninsula": 15
 * Samland + Baltic: 180 (114)
 * Samland + Prussia: 319 (121)
 * Samland + Russia: 56 (45)
 * Samland + amber: 119 (74)
 * Sambia: 3,610 (270 actual results, the vast majority of which refer to Zambia or the Papua New Guinea tribe)
 * "Sambia Peninsula": 1
 * "Sambian Peninsula": 4
 * Sambia + Baltic: 9
 * Sambia + Prussia: 14
 * Sambia + Russia: 19
 * Sambia + amber: 4

Google Scholar: --
 * Samland: 760 (748 actual, many of which refer to the surname Samland)
 * "Samland Peninsula": 11
 * Samland + Baltic: 81
 * Samland + Prussia: 66 (65)
 * Samland + Russia: 69 (68)
 * Samland + amber: 41 (most are relevant)
 * Sambia: 1,070 (990, the overwhelming majority of which refer to Zambia or the Papua New Guinea tribe)
 * "Sambia Peninsula": 7
 * "Sambian Peninsula": 15
 * Sambia + Baltic: 26
 * Sambia + Prussia: 11
 * Sambia + Russia: 61 (60, a few referencing Zambia)
 * Sambia + amber: 15 (most are relevant)

The 1911 Britannica used Samland. Britannica currently uses Sambia in the article about the Old Prussian language, but uses Samland when discussing the geography of the region, relevant to this Wikipedia article. Olessi 14:28, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

For those interested, here are English-language Google tests with the mirror filter using the search criteria used in the Books/Scholar searches. It is important to keep in mind that when using regular Google, the number of total search hits differs on the first page and the last page. I have put the actual total number of hits (given on the last page) in parentheses. The filter shows that a large number of the search hits for both terms using regular Google are merely wiki-mirrors.

--
 * Samland: 54,700 (743, many of which refer to surnames)
 * Samland + Baltic: 10,300 (378)
 * Samland + Prussia: 750 (312)
 * Samland + Russia: 11,000 (538)
 * Samland + amber: 632 (273)
 * Sambia: 214,000 (789 actual, the vast majority of which are not related to this peninsula)
 * Sambia + Baltic: 10,000 (304)
 * Sambia + Prussia: 582 (171)
 * Sambia + Russia: 85,900 (504 again, many links for Zambia)
 * Sambia + amber: 912 (216)

Based on these searches, Samland is referenced more using Google Books and Google Scholar, while the Sambia hits are usually for Zambia or the tribe. The regular Google searches are quite often wiki-mirrors. Olessi 15:43, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

User Ghirla opposes the old name because the peninsular is now in Russia. Whilst this has been the case for the past 60 years, for the previous 700 years it was known as Samland in every book and upon every map. Students of history are today having immense difficulty coping with name-changes where no link whatsoever is made to the original names. The modern renaming becomes entirely meaningless. The place might as well be at the South Pole. Given the disparity in centuries, above, I cannot understand why some sort of logical compromise here cannot be reached. Christchurch 19:28, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
 * If Sambia is the term currently used in Russia to refer to a peninsula in Russia, then the article's name should be Sambia. I proposed this Move Request because I had not found any indication that "Sambia" was the preferred term in Russia (and the article currents lists "Semlyandsky poluostrov", a variation of Samland), while Samland has been used more in English publications than Sambia. Olessi 23:58, 19 April 2006 (UTC)


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

A minor note: Shouldn't we add a dab notice at the top, since "Sambia" can also refer to Zambia (e.g. in German)? &mdash; Nightst a  llion  (?) Seen this already? 12:00, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Done. Regards, David Kernow 14:22, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Unfortunately people seem to have lost the plot here. This is the ENGLISH language edition of Wikipedia. Will you now be changing all place names by which English-speakers know places by to local names and ditching the English names? Munich will become Munchen, Warsaw - Warszawa, Rome - Roma, Bruxelles instead of Brussells. Indeed, why not go the whole hog and use the Cyrillic alphabet? I mean, where will this end? Christchurch 15:34, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Split
Please split this article. Sambia - is historical region (see ru:Самбия), Sambian Peninsula - is geographical object (see ru:Калининградский полуостров). historical region ≠ geographical object. --Insider (talk) 14:33, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
 * They may be not identical, but they are largely congruent, so the historical region can be considered the history of the contemporary region. -- Hämbörger (talk) 14:16, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree with Hämbörger; the two overlap enough that they should share the same space. If they were to be split, each subsequent article would amount to not much more than a stub. --Tea with toast (talk) 23:54, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree with Insider. Samland peninsula is a geographical identity, while Sambia is a historical-cultural region connected with a tribe of Sambians. That is an important scientific distinction. One is a geographical term, another - ethnological. Aleksandr Grigoryev (talk) 00:43, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Samland / Sambia; italics
A delayed response to the 7-year-old exchange that begins this page:

As a native English speaker and student of European history, I have always known the peninsula as the "Samland Peninsula." Samland was a German name based on the old Prussian name for the region, and the peninsula was not known in English as "Sambia" — at least, not before the Soviet takeover following WWII. Whether it's now known in English as the "Sambia Peninsula" I seriously doubt, since the German name was accepted in English for something like seven centuries.

I suppose the counter argument would be that all the other German names in northern East Prussia, now the Russian Kaliningrad Oblast, have been changed, but in all the cases I know of (except those in the former Memelland, now in Lithuania) they were changed to something completely different from the old German names. Sambia, however, clearly has the same root, so why not stick with "Samland"?

I note that Russian Wikipedia refers to the peninsula as "Калинингра́дский полуо́стров (Земландский, Самбийский полуостров) — giving the Russian version of "Samlandic" as an alternate for what apparently now in Russian is officially the "Kaliningradski" Peninsula. Dutch, Norwegian, Swedish and of course German Wikipedia entries refer to it simply as "Samland."


 * Meanwhile, I have changed the format of the sentence about the peninsula's "two famous seaside resorts" to de-italicize the former German names Rauschen and Cranz and instead to say "(former German name: x x x)." Normally, italics would be limited in this context to foreign-language words for things, concepts, etc., not place names. When Svetlogorsk was German it was officially Rauschen, not Rauschen. (By the by, the German verb rauschen denotes a resulting sound, as of leaves in the wind; as a noun, Rauschen, it means "the rustling" [of something].)


 * Sca (talk) 22:14, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

PNG geographic map
The current png file doesnt show the river Deyma, which forms the eastern boundary of Samland. Readers may wish to observe the exact shape of the peninsula/island. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.199.41.111 (talk) 03:47, 1 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I don't know if this refers to the same map, but the map File:Kaliningradsky_peninsula_EN.svg has the name of the peninsula spelled "Kalinindragsky Peninsula". Apart from the obvious typo, it should be "Kaliningrad Peninsula" (there is no need to carry the Russian suffix over into English), or "Sambia Peninsula" in accordance with the lemma. --2.204.228.225 (talk) 03:14, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

Samland/Sambia
The English name has always been "Samland". There are lots of Russian cities, Moscow, Saint Petersburg, etc,, with Anglicized names, which arent being Russianized in Wikipedia. The motive behind replacing "Samland" (easier to say in English), with "Sambia" (with more syllables) seems unclear. Is it just disliking for the language (and people) English drew it from? Also, the article states quite clearly that "Samland" is the name for the peninsula in the Germanic languages. English is a Germanic language. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.199.41.111 (talk) 03:57, 1 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Your first sentence is not true. --89.204.135.56 (talk) 18:50, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

what.happen.to.the.baltic.prussin
lwhat.happen.to.the.baltic.prussin 107.77.173.35 (talk) 21:26, 11 July 2021 (UTC)