Talk:The Case of the Animals versus Man

Epistle
Kingoflettuce, and Cerebellum as GA reviewer, is (Arabic) epistle the best translation of rasa'il?
 * epistle says epistles are usually letters and does not mention Arabic epistles.
 * Rasa'il redirects to Risala, which says risala (in various spellings) is an Arabic word meaning "Information" or "message" and is mainly a list of examples of risala.
 * Encyclopedia of the Brethren of Purity translates rasa'il as treatise, which seems clearer, though treatise doesn't have any Arabic examples either.
 * List of rasa'il in the Encyclopedia of the Brethren of Purity translates rasa'il as epistle. TSventon (talk) 08:14, 13 May 2022 (UTC)
 * The sources I've consulted say epistle, so that's what it is as far as I'm concerned. Be careful of OR! Kingoflettuce (talk) 08:22, 13 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Kingoflettuce, I believe a bit of OR is allowed on talk pages. I don't know Arabic myself, but hopefully it will be possible to find someone who does. TSventon (talk) 08:44, 13 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Gwern, you started the Encyclopedia of the Brethren of Purity article, please could you advise? TSventon (talk) 08:55, 13 May 2022 (UTC)
 * the writings of the Brethren of Purity are, in point of fact, treatises (formal and systematic discourses on specific subjects), and this is one of the possible meanings of the Arabic word "risala" (plural "rasa'il"). However, the word also means "epistle", and even more generally it is the common Arabic word for "letter" ('what you send to someone': the Arabic root r-s-l means 'sending'). Kingoflettuce is right that in reference to the writings of the Brethren of Purity, scholars almost universally speak of their "epistles". This seems to be conventional, and there is no doubt that Wikipedia should follow scholarly convention in this regard. It's no problem to say, as Encyclopedia of the Brethren of Purity does, that it consists of "52 treatises", or to descriptively refer to one of them as a "treatise", but when it comes to translating "rasa'il", or to speaking about the Brethren's writings in general terms, it really should be "epistles". ☿  Apaugasma  ( talk  ☉) 13:28, 19 May 2022 (UTC)
 * , thank you, that makes things clearer. Could you add the plural to Risala, I presume that wouldn't need a reference? It would also be useful to mention rasa'il in epistle, but that would need a source. TSventon (talk) 16:38, 19 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Wow, updating the Risala disambiguation page was a lot more work than I anticipated, but consider it ✅. As for adding something to epistle, that would necessitate a source as you say, and indeed some broader context on epistolary writing in Arabic. Not really my thing, so I'll leave it at this. ☿ Apaugasma  ( talk  ☉) 19:16, 19 May 2022 (UTC)

Arabic title
What is the title in (non-Romanized) Arabic? I tried to find translations of the title and came up with دادخواهی حیوانات نزد پادشاه پریان از ستم آدمیان from a Goodreads page, but I don't know if it's Arabic or Persian. Cmprince (talk) 23:35, 18 May 2022 (UTC)
 * The Arabic title is في أصناف الحيوانات وعجائب هياكلها وغرائب أحوالها (very literal translation: "On the Classes of Animals, the Wonders of their Structures, and the Peculiarities of their Affairs"; somewhat less literal: "On the Classes of Animals, their Wonderful Structures, and their Peculiar Affairs"). I've added the Arabic script to the article. I think we should consider adding the English translation of the original title to the main body of the article too (though perhaps not in the lead, where it may be too long). ☿ Apaugasma  ( talk  ☉) 14:37, 19 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Where alternate translations exist, I add them as a footnote to the title used in the lead (for example, Jeune Homme à sa/la fenêtre). I think MOS may prefer those in the text itself (MOS:ALTNAME), but for long titles, I find it distracting. Cmprince (talk) 18:14, 19 May 2022 (UTC)