Talk:Turkish Van/Archive 3

Non-native-English-speaker
Hi, everybody. Thank you all for your help in the editing of the parts of the article that I have placed. Anyhow, I "am bold-enough" not to be upset with the following comment: "Van pattern in the Turkish Van cat: Rephrased one paragraph that must have been written by a non-native-English-speaker". Yes, I am not a native English speaker. But, in case I did not write, what I did in the years, would any other person do it, including breeders and other experts in the breed? So, thanks again for your help. Best wishes, -- Zara-arush (talk) 16:29, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

Letter of Pierre Victor Lottin de Laval
Letter of Pierre Victor Lottin de Laval that was discussed last year here as a product of imagination may be seen, read and translated here in Galica, published at: The text is as fallws:


 * CHAT D'ANGORA. 181
 * II. TRAVAUX ADRESSÉS
 * ET COMMUNICATIONS FAITES A LA SOCIÉTÉ.
 * SUR LE CHAT D'ANGORA.
 * LETTRE ADRESSÉE
 * A M. LE PRÉSIDENT DE LA SOCIÉTÉ IMPÉRIALE D'ACCLIMATATION
 * Par M. LOTTIN DE LA VAL.
 * (Séance du H avril 1856.)
 * Monsieur le Président,
 * Ces jours derniers, quand j'eus l'honneur de vous recevoir chez moi, vous me fîtes part de l'opinion récemment accréditée que les Chats dits A'Angora n'existaient ou ne pouvaient vivre

que dans le voisinage de l'antique Ancyre. C'est une erreur, et je m'empresse de vous envoyer cette note pour détromper le monde savant.

"J'ai trouvé cette belle espèce féline sur le grand plateau arménien à Erzerouin, où le climat diffère singulièrement de celui d'Angora. Elle est très nombreuse à Mourch (Kurdistan) ; cette espèce est la race dominante, .l'en ai trouvé aussi àBillis et dans le pachalick de Bayazid ; mais les plus beaux que j'ai vus appartenaient à l'archevêque de Van, ville située dans l'est du Kurdistan, sur les frontières de l'Aderbaïdjan. Il en possédait trois : un de couleur gris de perle, un orangé, moucheté de blanc et de noir, et le troisième complètement blanc, leur fourrure était magnifique, et l'on ne trouvait à cela rien d'extraordinaire, tant ces animaux sont communs dans leKurdistan. J'en ai vu aussi à Alpéit, chez Khan Mahmoud, prince de Hékiars. Je n'ai pas souvenance d'en avoir vu en Perse; si j'avais pensé que cela pût intéresser la science, je m'en serais préoccupé malgré mes travaux si multiples. Mais ce qui vous surprendra davantage, c'est que malgré l'élévation de la température, on trouve à Bagdad des Chats d'Angora; seulement ils sont moins beaux que ceux qui vivent sur le versant nord des"


 * 182 SOCIÉTÉ IMPÉRIALE ZOOLOGIQUE D'ACCLIMATATION.


 * montagnes Médiques et du Taurus : doit-on attribuer cela à l'atmosphère embrasée ou àl'hostilité desBagdadins? Je l'ignore et vous résoudrez la question bien plus sûrement que moi ; ce que je puis vous dire, c'est que les habitants de Bagdad font une rude guerre aux chats, prétendant, avec assez de raison, je crois, qu'ils apportent la peste à cause de leurs fourrures et de leurs habitudes. Quand le terrible fléau sévit dans la ville des

Kalifes, toute communication est interdite; chacun s'interne, et principalement les chrétiens, qui repoussent le fatalisme musulman.


 * C'est par les terrasses, m'ont dit plusieurs Chaldéens, que la peste nous arrive. Aussi chacune de ces terrasses, même quand la peste n'a pas sévi depuis plusieurs années, est-elle en tout temps défendue par une épaisse et haute muraille faite de Sabber et autres arbustes épineux du désert ; ces haies formidables sont entretenues avec plus de soin que les maisons

mômes. C'est en demandant la cause de ces épais fourrés qui me semblaient si sales et si disgracieux sous le beau ciel de l'Irack, dans cette, ville de jardins, belle encore malgré sa déchéance, que j'ai dû de pouvoir répondre à votre question de l'autre jour.


 * En temps de peste, chacun reste sur sa terrasse, le fusil à la main, et tout chat qui rôde est tué impitoyablement ; il est bien entendu que les chrétiens seuls se livrent à cet exercice,

les musulmans ne croyant pas à la contagion de la peste.


 * Veuillez agréer, etc., LOTTIN DE LA VAL.


 * P. S. Quant aux Chèvres d'Angora, je ne puis vous en rien

dire. J'ëi traversé la haute Arménie et le Kurdistan deux fois: là première, dtirant l'automne et l'hiver, saison des neiges; lii seconde, à là fin dti printemps, alors que les troupeaux étaient dans lès plus hautes montagriès. J'ai vu beaucoup de Chèvres, ftiais sàhs étudier leur pelage -, cela n'entrait pas d'ailleurs dans mes instructions et je n'avais pas les connaissances nécessaires. Votre Question, monsieur, m'a fait regretter de n'avoir pas ajouté cette page à mes observations; cela prouve une fois de plus" que le Gouvernement, lorsqu'il doniie de grandes mis- sions, rie saurait trop élargir le cercle des instructions.

I hope this time none will object to include this description in the text of the article.-- Zara-arush (talk) 20:54, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Here is Google translation: Mr. President, In recent days, when I had the honor to have you with me, you made me part of the opinion recently certified that the Cats said A'Angora exist or could not live in the vicinity of the ancient Ancyra. It is a mistake, and I hasten to send you this note to disabuse the world of learning.

I found this beautiful feline species on the large Armenian plateau Erzerouin, where the climate differs greatly from that of Angora. It is very large in Mourch (Kurdistan), this species is the dominant race.'ve Also found in the àBillis and the pachaship Bayazid, but the most beautiful I've seen belonged to the Archbishop of Van, a city located in eastern Kurdistan, on the borders of the Aderbaïdjan. He had three: a gray pearl, an orange, speckled with white and black, and the third completely white fur was beautiful, and we did not find anything extraordinary in this, as these animals are leKurdistan in common. I've also seen Alpéit among Mahmud Khan, Prince of Hékiars. I do not recall having seen in Persia, if I thought it might be interested in science, I would be concerned if my work despite numerous. But what will surprise you more is that despite the rise in temperature, found in Baghdad of Angora cats, only they are less beautiful than those who live on the northern slopes of the Taurus mountains Medication and must: we attribute this to the heated atmosphere or àl'hostilité desBagdadins? I do not know and you will solve the issue much more surely than I, I can tell you is that Baghdad residents are a tough war to cats, saying, reasonably enough, I think they bring the plague because of their fur and their habits. When the terrible plague raged in the city of caliphs, all communication is prohibited and each s'interne, mainly Christians, who reject the Islamic fatalism.

It is through the terraces, told me many Chaldeans, that the plague upon us. As each of these terraces, even when the plague has not prevailed for several years, she is at all times defended by a thick, high wall made of Sheba and other thorny shrubs of the desert these formidable hurdles are maintained more care that houses kids. It's asking the cause of these thickets that seemed so dirty and so ugly in the beautiful sky Irack in this, city gardens, still beautiful despite her downfall, I had to answer your question the other day. In time of plague, both remained on his terrace, gun in hand, and any cat who prowls is ruthlessly killed, it is understood that only Christians are engaged in this exercise, Muslims do not believe in the contagion of plague.

Accept, etc.., LOTTIN OF THE VAL.

P. S. As for Angora goats, I can not tell you anything. J'ëi crossed the Upper Armenia and Kurdistan twice: first there, dtirant autumn and winter snow season; lii second, there dti late spring when the flocks were in the highest montagriès. I saw lots of goats, ftiais SAHS study their fur - this did not, however, in my instructions and I did not have the necessary knowledge. Your question, sir, made me regret not having said this page to my observations, it proves once again that "the Government, when doniie large missions, not laugh too widen the circle of instructions.

Best wishes, -- Zara-arush (talk) 21:15, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Possible Good Article nomination
Zara has suggested this article could be nominated as a Good Article. I think it needs a couple of things doing before its nominated - I've put my suggestions here, so anyone who edits the article can pick them up. It's picky bits - the only thing that might be an issue is Zara citing herself, which will depend on how the reviewer takes it.


 * Stability - I'm glad to see that the argument about what the cats look like has been resolved.
 * Maintenance tags - needs the maintenace tags resolving and removing. I suspect these have all been dealt with ages ago
 * Images - The caption which credits the photographer needs to be changed to remove the credit. The style guide says that the photographer details are contained in the license and shouldn't be included in the caption. The non free use rationale on the one non-free image (Laura Lushington's cat) appears fine to me.
 * Prose - could do with a little bit of a copyedit here and there. There's a few words missing, and the section on the coat marking legends still seems a bit 'chatty' to me (Zara and I have disagreed on this before, so I don't want to edit that bit myself)
 * Sources - there's a couple of formatting issues - sources 21-25 want formatting with a refname. Zara, you've cited yourself as a source a lot, and I think a reviewer will call attention to that. At the very least, the breed standard should be cited to the official fancy standard, not to anything you have written.

--Elen of the Roads (talk) 23:06, 11 December 2010 (UTC) This is so true ive never seen something truer. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.185.36.204 (talk) 00:20, 12 April 2011 (UTC)


 * I needs a lot more than "a couple of things" before this will be a GA. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ʕ(Õلō)ˀ  Contribs. 14:10, 13 December 2011 (UTC)
 * I was being polite LOL. I'd really like to see all the articles on the swimming cats from the Van area rolled into one and improved to reach GA standard.Elen of the Roads (talk) 21:53, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Turkish Van & Van Cat

 * 1) Van Cat (Van kedisi, Pisîka Wanê) is white cat. (Van Cat)
 * 2) Turkish Van (this article) has typical "Van's patern" in its tail.

I don't know that Armenian alternative name vana katou / vana gadou is used for which cats. At least Van Kedisi is Turkish alternative name of Van Cat (not Turkish Van). In Kurdish generally Pisîka Wanê means Van Cat (not Turkish Van). Takabeg (talk) 14:51, 25 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Վանա կատու (Vana katu) literally means Cat of Van, or Van's cat.--Yerevanci (talk) 15:20, 25 September 2011 (UTC)
 * "Vana Gadu" is also used in a well-known children's song in Armenia (about a Van cat that goes to Tabriz to get cream). Meowy 20:52, 11 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I moved all that stuff to Van Cat, at least for as long as these remain separate articles. That said, trying to use the literal meaning of these non-English phrases as some kind of support for the notion that the Van Cat and Turkish Van are unrelated breeds is blatant original research and outright nonsense. They might be different, but that won't have anything to do with local linguistics. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ʕ(Õلō)ˀ  Contribs. 20:29, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Merge
The unresolved merge proposals really need to be dealt with. Turkish Van, Van Cat and Van Cat naming controversy have all been proposed for merger (or for reaching a clear, reasoned consensus to not merge) for several years now. Regardless of the outcome of the debate, the articles are grossly confused and confusing, contradictory, and clearly pushing warring viewpoints rather than providing verifiable information from reliable sources, and this must be cleaned up one way or another. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ʕ(Õلō)ˀ  Contribs. 14:19, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

PS: Correction: Traditional Persian cat is a separate article. A strong argument could be made for merging it, but it's not important. It is not a POV-fork like Van Cat, and does not raise the same problematic issues. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ʕ(Õلō)ˀ  Contribs. 15:08, 13 December 2011 (UTC) I retract the struck part; I have been convinced entirely that it is in fact appropriate for landraces to have separate articles, because they are in fact spearaet things from formal breeds that are in part based on them. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 20:24, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Merge: I'm in favor of merging them all into Turkish Van and leaving Van Cat naming controversy as a categorized redirect to Turkish Van. There is no reason that I can see to have a separate article on the traditional/natural/landrace version, the Van Cat, any more than we have such articles for the non-selectively bred original versions of the Siamese (it looked nothing like the pinch-faced, skinny things people are breeding now) or any other cat breeds. I think it is very, very clear that the present situation is a blatnt WP:POVFORK, which is a Wikipedia policy violation. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ʕ(Õلō)ˀ  Contribs. 14:19, 13 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment: This article is one of the first I ever edited. I have a book from 1980 (The Book of the Cat, ed Michael Wright and Sally Walters) which talks about these cats. The date is significant, as the "Turkish Angora" was only recognised by the US cat fancies in the 1970s, based on cats bred from stock imported from Turkey, and was initially restricted to whites until 1978. In the UK, cats from Turkey called angoras had been imported up to the 19th century, but were practically unknown in the 20th. A breed called "Angora" was given preliminary recognition in 1977 with all colours being recognised.  This Angora cat arose from breeders recreating the look of the original Turkish cats, and is as related to the Balinese as it is to the original cat from Turkey.


 * So far so confusing. The 1980 article, I'm quoting because it seems to represent the point where the confusion started (not in the wars between Turkey, Armenia and anyone else in the area). The book noted that the original Angora cat is still found in Turkey, where the name "ankara kedi" is given to the odd-eyed white, but that other colours are known. It also noted that in the Van area, a subset of the Turkish cat exists in a red and white form, which will breed true, and it noted that the cats from Van enjoy swimming. These cats were imported to Britain and the US, and became known as the "Turkish" or "Turkish van" It doesn't say that the only cats in Van are red and white. Some OR undertaken by myself trawling Flikr for people's holiday snaps of cats taken in the Van area showed that cats from Van with other coat colours and markings also swam.


 * The problem therefore is that a Van kedi or van kedisi is a real turkish angora cat; while the van cat from Van is a specific subset of the real turkish angora cat, which lives in Van, is sometimes red and white, and enjoys a dip and is called a turkish can; while the angora cat isn't a real turkish angora cat at all, and the Turkish Van is an american cat bred from cats from the Van area, is sometimes red and white, and enjoys a dip.


 * Pass the aspirin.Elen of the Roads (talk) 22:40, 13 December 2011 (UTC)
 * It's actually more complicated than that, since the Turkish Van (whether or not this is the same as the Van Cat) isn't the same as the Turkish Angora; they're from different parts of Turkey. Just speaking of the natural breeds; not sure what relevance any of it has to Europe- and US-bred cats from other stock that are made to simply look like Turkish cats.  Would you agree that  rather than  articles is the place to write about this encyclopedically? — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ʕ(Õلō)ˀ  Contribs. 01:28, 14 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Actually SMcCandlish, I believe the problem is that the cats are the same in Ankara and Van - the coat characteristic with the long silky coat with no undercoat, and long gracile body (as opposed to the persian which has a woolly undercoat and is built like a brick outhouse) - is common to cats throughout Turkey. It is the western breeders which appear to have created a distinction between ankara kedisi (cats from Ankara) and van kedisi (cats from Van).  As you'll see in the article itself, a great number of the cats being described are odd eyed all-white, which would make them ankara kedisi, or Angoras under the old western breed standards.  Zara-arush (who spent a long time editing this article to her way of thinking, but was familiar with the region) in fact spent a long time arguing that the true van kedisi is an odd-eyed white, whereas the cats that Linda Lushington took home with her all had the "van pattern" markings. Elen of the Roads (talk) 19:21, 15 December 2011 (UTC)
 * That's all fine and good, if the sources are, for a "History" section somewhere; I don't see that this affects the merge proposal. What we need to deal with is that the registries largely recognize two breeds, under various names, but usually the Turkish Angora and Turkish Van.  These are verifiable breeds in virtually all modern books about cats, and should be separate articles. There is no excuse for Van Cat naming controversy being an article, at all, and it has to merge somewhere, if kept (a complaint at WT:WikiProject Kurdistan strongly suggests it should just be deleted as noise; my own read suggests that some kernel of it is keepable as a section somewhere, so I'm not WP:AFDing it).  Van Cat article appears to be a cross between an obvious POV forking, so that misc. Turk/Kurd/Armenian issues can be WP:SOAPBOXed about, and an honest attempt to create an article about the landrace or "natural breed" of cats native to the Van area. The POV fork has to be dealt with, and I cannot see a rationale for the landrace having its own article, instead of a section at Turkish Van.  The only article on a cat landrace with a purebreed variant that has its own article is Traditional Persian cat, the existence of which is arguably justifiable under WP:SUMMARY, though I'd still favor merging them.  With Turkish Van being a miserable stub, there's no such rationale for forking off a new article for the "traditional" or "natural" original stock.   Months later, it's actually clear that  should be at separate articles; while "traditional breeds" (i.e. early forms of formal breeds, derived from landraces) should be sections at the parent breed article, or forked off per WP:SUMMARY if the breed article is long. There isn't actually a rationale for merging landraces to breed articles; I was wrong on that. — SMcCandlish    Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿ ¤ þ  Contrib.  01:26, 3 March 2012 (UTC)   If you're telling me that both of the "Turkish" breeds recognized by CFA, TICA, etc. are derived from the same landrace, and you're certain that this can be reliably sourced, that might complicate things.  PS: One cat book from 1980 isn't a convincing level of reliable sourcing.  I've managed to obtain the majority of the cat breed books published in English in the last 30 years, so I can probably help with sourcing things, but I'm going to be focusing mostly on rewriting the Manx (cat) article to GA/FA standards. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ʕ(Õلō)ˀ  Contribs. 12:02, 16 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Comment: I've only reviewed this in the sketchiest way, so my opinion probably isn't worth much. I'd prefer to have the entire thing under a single article, as I believe it allows greater access to the subject and surrounding issues as a whole. The issue then is what the article name ought to be, which complicates matters, and I'm not sure there is a simple solution for that. So I'm not quite supporting a merge at this point but not rejecting one either. Kafka Liz (talk) 01:39, 14 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep: The Turkish Van, even under its former name of Turkish cat, dates as a breed only from 1969. The markings on a Turkish Van are a result of selective breeding: Ashford and Pond state that the original cats that were exported from Turkey were chosen because they all had the same colourings ("deep auburn markings on the face and rings of the same colour on the tail"). The physical characteristics and breed standard are different from that of the Van cat, which is probably a landrace and has a documented history dating back several hundred years. The Van cat is not a Turkish Van under the breed standards used to define a Turkish Van. The Turkish Van is not a Van cat based on descriptions of Van cats in historical sources, in photographs and literature from the 1950s onwards, in its popular recognition in the Van region, and in the Van University’s Van cat breeding program. Ashford and Pond's 1972 "Rex, Abyssinian and Turkish Cats" described the cats brought back from Turkey as "true Angora type", referring to their body shape and length of coat. The "Van pattern" that (pedigree aside) is the only substantial difference between Angoras and Turkish Vans is not found on actual Van cats. The only thing the two articles have in common is the word "Van", and mere similarity of name is not a reason to merge articles. However the "Van Cat naming controversy" article is so full of OR it should be deleted. Meowy 20:31, 11 February 2012 (UTC)
 * The salvageable parts of it have been merged to Van cat. I've also copied your post immediately above to that article's talk page since it is a great "nutshell" summary. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿ ¤ þ  Contrib.  01:05, 3 March 2012 (UTC)
 * BTW, surely ZaraArush must be the same person as Zarine Arushanian who wrote four of the articles that ZaraArush has added to this article as references? If this is correct, does this not make her additions OR? These articles contain a disapointing amount of dismal rubbish, and not even new rubbish. Yet again we are told of Urartian and Roman depictions of ringtailed cats - of course no such depictions exist. And Arushanian adds to it some home-grown paranoia about how the Turks are corrupting the purity of the Armenian Van cat by turning it white! How can she claim that and at the same time post the words of Pierre Victor Lottin who mentions an all-white Van cat owned by the Armenian bishop of Van? Meowy 21:11, 11 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Notes, without taking a side. Likely but not proven, and it wouldn't be WP:OR if they're reliable sources, but pushing them certainly raises WP:NPOV and WP:COI issues. NB: Lottin is a patently unreliable source for anything but his own beliefs. He actually wrote that believes cats spread plague, when the opposite is known to be true. — SMcCandlish    Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 20:24, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Err .. how can the opposite be true, that they prevent the spread of plague! :) Actually, the Van cats in Van were very much at risk during the Bird Flu scares of the 2000s, several people who caught it in Dogubayazit were brough to hospitals in Van and there were fears that it could break out in the city, which would have meant the killing of all stray cats, and the risk that all the Van cats in the Van cat House would also be killed if one of them became infected. But, back to your point, I don'tt hink you can't really blanket-exclude a historic source because its author held medical beliefs that are now known to be false. You would be excluding about every source written before 1900, and a lot after it, if that policy was followed. It would be like saying let's Wikiwide-exclude most sources written by modern Americans since a good percentage of them believe in UFOs or the literal meaning of the Bible. Meowy 23:15, 1 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Cats, especially feral, prevent the spread of plague by killing large numbers of the rats and mice that carry plague fleas. There's a lot written about this. The three proximal causes of the Black Death were overcrowding, low concern for hygiene (including tolerance of rodents everywhere as if they didn't matter, even in the home) and an active, centuries-long pogrom of killing cats as "the devil's familiar" (people didn't keep housecats, and their homes were full of rodents). Bubonic plague and avian flu are not related, so anything to do with cats and avia flu vetors isn't germane.


 * Old sources like Lottin are not unreliable for, but are unreliable for facts about scientific topics like cat breeding, and cannot be regarded as anything but anecdotal with regard to personal observations they report, since there was no real journalism or other professional editing back then – people with money wrote whatever they liked and were published with impunity. It's not important anyway. One report of a white cat is near-meaningless; there are white cats all over the world, and seeing one in one place does not establish evidence of an entire breed or landrace.  I'm not saying Lottin cannot be quoted as an interesting anecdotal report (but in which article - is he talking about the Turkish Van, in the formal breed sense, or a Van cat, the landrace?)  He can't plausibly be cited as a reliable source. I would quote him by name, because he provides an interesting historical perspective, but not attempt to write encyclopedic prose based on his letter as a quietly cited source. If further discussion is needed I strongly suggest starting a new thread. This aging wall-o'-text has covered too many unrelated subtopics for anyone to make sense of it without Herculean effort. — SMcCandlish    Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿ ¤ þ  Contrib.  01:05, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

This merge discussion really originated almost three years ago (this is just a more recent round). The actual worthwhile sourcing so far clearly indicates that the Van cat (Van kedisi, cat of Van) is a landrace of the Lake Van area, known for several centuries, and while it's clearly at least part of the basis for the formal Turkish Van (ex-"Turkish cat") breed it isn't the same thing, by definition (breed != landrace). So, not only is there no consensus for a merge (other than of the pointless and WP:POINTy Van cat naming controversy into Van cat), a merge is strongly contra-indicated, because we don't write one article on two different topics just because they're easily confused. I'm marking this entire thread Resolved. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 20:24, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks for this, though I have to say some of the facts floating around this discussion are wrong. All registered Turkish Van cats are descended only from cats picked up from the Lake Van area and imported first to the UK, and then to US and Germany. I have pedigrees going back to the original cats, so this breed is not based "only in part" on the landrace, it is more like a subset of it. It is true that only Turkish cats with the particular color pattern were used, but there has been no interbreeding with other breeds, and certainly not with Turkish Angoras. This is the nice thing about pedigreed cats when it comes to research...they have pedigrees listing all of their ancestors, and stud books are kept from the beginning. pschemp | talk 06:12, 7 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Great. Let's make sure the article is clear on this. PS: Every formal breed is, by definition, a subset of a landrace or an admixture of landraces. We still need to keep these articles separate. Even various breeds with "landrace" in their names (especialy among pigs and dogs) are not landraces, but breeds derived from carefully selectively breed individuals of the original landrace and their offspring. — SMcCandlish    Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿ ¤ þ  Contrib.  23:03, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

What the heck has happened to this article?
If this article is to be only about the breed, and not the landrace, as seems to be the consensus, it needs a serious overhaul. It is muddled, uses poor English and (what Encyclopedia article uses "we"?) full of opinion, incorrect facts and OR. Older versions talked much more about the breed, in simple clear terms, and it is disappointing what happened here. This shows one of the worst problems with Wikipedia, letting half decent articles slide into total crap. I don't understand what is wrong with sticking to actual facts.

To that end, I am going to start fixing this article to be about the breed, and move anything about the landrace to the Van Cat article. That is the solution I proposed years ago when this first came up. Also, this article was always intended to ONLY be about the breed, not the landrace, when I created it.

pschemp | talk 06:26, 7 March 2012 (UTC)


 * "I don't understand what is wrong with sticking to actual facts". If that is now true, then great. You might be whiter than white now (whiter even that a Van cat) but you once added the following to this article: "Turkish Vans have been living in their native Anatolia for thousands of years and various references to "white ringtail" cats through history show this. The classic red tabby and white pattern gives the ringtail appearance and has been found depicted on Hittite jewelry of antiquity. Also, archeologists have found "...relics of an ancient battle during the occupation of Armenia by the Romans included armor and banners displaying an image of a large white cat with rings on its tail." And you threatened those who wanted to remove that unsourced utter nonsense with editing blocks. Your solution years ago was to usurp the entire history of the Van cat and incorporate it (along with a load of nonsense) into the Turkish Van article in order to give the Turkish Van a better historical pedigree. As for the Van cats, you dismissed them as a "bunch of street cats". And you editing ally, badbilltucker, thought that the continued existence of all-white cats was an example of racist White supremacy! Meowy 21:34, 11 March 2012 (UTC)


 * I don't want to see more squabbling here. Can we agree that we all agree that the Van cat and Turkish Van (and Turkish Angora) articles need to be separate because they are respectively about a landrace and two derived formal breeds?  We don't have to be angry an one another to do that.  Even I was once in favor of merging the landrace article into the breed article until I "saw the light" about the topics being necessarily severable. — SMcCandlish    Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿ ¤ þ  Contrib.  23:07, 12 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Was that some chatoyant light perhaps? :) OK, let's all move on. Meowy 02:12, 13 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Whatever Meowy. Years later and you are still bitter because no one agreed with you on the RFC. You obviously have emotional problems with this topic. I wrote the original article 6 years ago with the best information that was available at the time. pschemp | talk 21:05, 13 March 2012 (UTC)
 * So, years later, you are now accepting that your "best information" was mostly a load of nonsense? If so, thank you for the rather flattering observation that I, and I alone, had the intelligence to know back then that it was a load of nonsense. Meowy 03:00, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Old issue - Van Cat:Turkish Van
As those breeds differ, I'm taking away interlanguage link leading to Van kedisi Arantz (talk) 14:23, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

This is unfair!
VAN CAT is the correct Term! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.1.68.159 (talk) 14:53, 15 June 2012 (UTC)
 * See Van cat. CMD (talk) 16:57, 15 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Yeah, they're totally different. There's no evidence for (cited so far) and strong evidence against the case that they're even closely related. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ⊝כ⊙þ Contrib.  03:03, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

Rewritten
This article has been completely rewritten to reflect only information about the modern breed, as per the consensus of the discussion above. All info about the landrace has been removed, and it is clear at the beginning that the landrace is something different. All OR, citing yourself, speculation, fantastic facts, "we"s and "mighty bones" have been removed. This is now in line with the other breed articles. I found this reference http://vancatblog.com/photo-gallery/?album=all&gallery=8 with pictures of van marked cats in the van area of Turkey most interesting. pschemp | talk 10:32, 7 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Wow - I think that article confirms that Lushington was rather deceptive from the outset. She claims she saw one "Van cat" curled up in a disused lobster pot. There are no lobsters within a thousand miles of Lake Van, so that cat was not a "Van cat"! She claims she saw a "Van cat" curled up under a blue gum tree (a Eucalyptus) - these are not found in the Lake Van region, they could not survive the long and very cold winters. So that cat too was not a "Van cat"! The landscape we see in the picture of the cat on the leash is also not like any landscape you can see around Lake Van (I've been thee many times). I think that what Lushingham might have brought back from Turkey were a number of unrelated long-haired cats that had similar markings and which probably had no connection to real Van cats. And as for her first two "Van cats" - she writes that she got one from Istanbul, and another from some unidentified location in eastern Turkey (presumably not Van, or why would she not just say Van). Meowy 22:09, 11 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Yet another reason not to confuse Turkish Van and Van cat. The fact that the Turkish Van breed is probably misnamed is hardly anything new in the cat fancy; most breeds have jack to do with with their geographic namesakes. Not sure how to approach this problem from WP:NOR perspective. Isn't there any published criticism of the "Turkish Vans are descended from Van cats" idea? I suggested above that this idea should be included and sourced if it's reliably sourceable, but if it's not, perhaps the opposite is true. — SMcCandlish    Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿ ¤ þ  Contrib.  23:12, 12 March 2012 (UTC)
 * I don't read cat-related magazines or periodicals and such like, so I don't know. All I know is that some 2 or 3 years ago, when all the arguments here were going on, I looked at a lot of the more silly Turkish Van websites, home produced things, and messageboards, they were full of comments like "I saw a Turkish Van on the streets of Cairo" or "look at the stray Turkish Van I found in a back lot in Los Angeles" - of course none of them were descendants of Lushington's pedigree cats and it all indicated (to me) that the Turkish Van colouring is just an uncommon variation found in normal long-haired big-boned cats everywhere and that, by implication, even the Lushington cats may have had no connection at all to real Van cats. Meowy 02:22, 13 March 2012 (UTC)
 * You always want to insert your own OR don't you? I think the pictures of Lushington WITH the cats (in the reference I mentioned above) shows that they are indeed related. She was a famous photographer in her day, and there is no reason to assume she is/was lying. Assume good faith and all that. You have nothing to prove that she wasn't telling the truth. I highly doubt you are a tree identification expert and it is entirely possible that due to language differences and translation errors that the tree name is incorrect.pschemp | talk 20:58, 13 March 2012 (UTC)
 * SMC, There is no "sourced" criticism because there is no reason to assume Laura Lushington was lying. In fact, that's a pretty outrageous claim to make with no proof. Her story is corroborated by the others who were there with her, and anything else is A. Speculation, B. Original Research or C. Thinly disguised nationalism. pschemp | talk 21:02, 13 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Well, I think the clear thing to do is to stick to sources as much as possible that name their own sources. About 95% of cat-related stuff in print is unsourced rehash so this is easier said than done. The vast majority of magazine articles on cats are pure tripe. — SMcCandlish    Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿ ¤ þ  Contrib.  06:24, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

Is it correct to give the origin as "Turkey"? The Turkish Van breed was not developed inside Turkey. A glance at various other cat breed articles shows that the origin seems to be where the breed developed, not where the cats that gave birth to the breed might have originally come from. Meowy 03:06, 25 March 2012 (UTC)
 * OF course it is. The cats all came from Turkey, period. The Turkish Angora, the cat breed in the most similar situation, also lists its origin as Turkey. Few other breeds have such careful records and pedigrees that show all the cats originally came from one country. pschemp | talk 19:24, 12 April 2012 (UTC)
 * The Turkish Van breed was NOT developed in Turkey! How on earth can you (or the infobox) claim otherwise? Meowy 15:36, 14 April 2012 (UTC)
 * The infobox doesn't say the breed was "developed" in Turkey, but that it originated there. This is an issue with the infobox, really, and should be taken up at Template talk:Infobox cat breed.  In the interim, I suggest that both Turkey (as origin of the breeding stock) and the UK (as where the actual initial breeding was done) both be listed, as different kinds of true facts, but equally true. — SMcCandlish    Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿ ¤ þ  Contrib.  16:20, 16 April 2012 (UTC)
 * I am at a loss to understand what this argument is about. The original sources are crystal clear. The 1965 Lushington article states quite clearly that she had not been to Van when she acquired her cats: "In April 1963 I told the story of my Van cats from Turkey, and I described both how I came to own and love them, and some of their eccentricities and fascinating characteristics. Now at last I have been to Van, in Eastern Turkey, and seen with my own eyes the ancient city of Van and the glorious Lake Van." In the 1963 article she says "I first came across the Van cat about seven years ago, while I was travelling through Turkey. I was given a female in south-eastern Turkey and a male by the manager of the hotel in which I stayed in Istanbul." So there's nothing "vague" about this at all. It's absolutely clear. She was given a male and a female of a type of cat identified as "Van" cats, but only later visited Van. What's the problem? Maybe she's telling a pack of lies. Maybe it's the God's own truth, but it's fairly clear and consistent. All we need to do is report what she says. If there are other sources that contradict her, shove them in too. Here's the link to the original '63 article (there's some garbling of the online text due to OCR problems, but the original scanned photographs of the pages can be read). The only ambiguity is that bit about "south eastern Turkey". Since the Van Province is in South Eastern Turkey, it's possible that the female was literally from Van in the broad regional sense.  If so, that would mean that her later 1965 visit was specifically to the city and the lake. Then again, there is a lot of south eastern Turkey outside the Van Province. Nevertheless, there is certainly nothing deceptive here. Lushington is never claiming that the cats were picked up in Van, just that they were of a type known as "Van" cats (you don't have to literally get a "Manx cat" from the isle of Man). Meowy's extraordinary claims about Lushington seem to be completely unsubstantiated. Meowy insists that Lushington is "seeming to say two different things...(before she started to call them "Turkish Vans") she is very vague as to their origin and her words imply that she got the cats from everywhere in Turkey but Van (and, significantly, she NEVER actually states that she got them from Van)." She's not vague at all. She calls them Vans from the outset. There is no sign that she is saying "two different things".  There's certainly no reason to say that "Lushington was rather deceptive from the outset." So she says "she saw one 'Van cat' curled up in a disused lobster pot". Meowy triumphantly asserts that "there are no lobsters within a thousand miles of Lake Van, so that cat was not a 'Van cat'!" What a silly argument. That's like saying you could never see a Dalmatian dog in a jungle because there are no jungles in Dalmatia. She's referring to a type of cat. Whether or not that type is correctly identified as a descendent of cats local to Van is another question, but there is nothing deceptive, inconsistent or confused about what she says. Paul B (talk) 23:12, 24 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Have you read anything about these discussions. and back through the archive? There is a genuine Van Cat, and there is the "Turkish Van". There are those that claim the latter are also the former. And there are editors here who support orhave supported that position. You quote: "In April 1963 I told the story of my Van cats from Turkey, and I described both how I came to own and love them, and some of their eccentricities and fascinating characteristics. Now at last I have been to Van, in Eastern Turkey, and seen with my own eyes the ancient city of Van and the glorious Lake Van." In the 1963 article she says "I first came across the Van cat about seven years ago, while I was travelling through Turkey. I was given a female in south-eastern Turkey and a male by the manager of the hotel in which I stayed in Istanbul." and claim there is clarity! But the lack of clarity is not in what Lushington said in these early sources, but between what is said in them them and what is said in late sources which claim or imply that all the Turkish Vans are descended from cats that were from Lake Van. In the early sources, NOWHERE does she state that she got the cats in Van. These early articles were not available for consultation in past discussions here. Lushington can call her cats Van cats, but her calling them Van cats no more makes them actual Van cats than her calling them Moon Cats would make them from the Moon. And it is still not clear on what basis Lushington called these cats that she did not get in Van "Van cats" - were they called that by whoever sold them to Lushingtom because it was not illegal to export Van Cats from Turkey (but it was illegal to export the very similar looking "Ankara Cat")? Meowy 16:12, 27 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes, I read through the archive, and was quite shocked by your seemingly almost deranged obsession with implausible consipiracy theories dating at least as back as far as 2009. Some of your replies to user:Elen of the Roads bordered on the disturbed IMO. It's really very simple. Lushingtion aquired two cats that were identified to her as "Van cats". Whether that was true or not is impossible to say, and indeed it depends on how you define "Van cat", but there is absolutely no reason to doubt that she believed it to be true or to make ludicrous claims of lying. As far as I could see Elen came up with evidence that the "Turkish Van" markings are found in some cats from Van, but you just made preposterous claims that photos were faked! Why? No one had any motive. You seem to want to insist that only pure white cats are "real" Van cats. This all seems to me to be a lot of silly nonsense. The Western breed is derived from Turkish cats identified as Van cats. No one had any discernable ideological or other reason to deceive anyone about this. Your repeat your mantra "In the early sources, NOWHERE does she state that she got the cats in Van." Yes, I know. I said so, didn't I? You are capable of reading bolded text aren't you? It's irrelevant whether or not she got them in Van, for the same reason that you don't have to go to the Isle of Man to get a Manx cat. It's completely irrelevant. Paul B (talk) 17:52, 27 April 2012 (UTC)
 * You had better start to watch your language, your attitudes, and your ignorance. Meowy 01:54, 28 April 2012 (UTC)
 * No Meowy, I think you are the one that needs to watch their language. I have a mop, and access to your previous history. Please moderate your language, do not call people liars, do not call reliable sources 'lies' and stop assuming bad faith of all those around you, or you already know what the consequences will be. Elen of the Roads (talk) 02:03, 28 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes, I did indeed do a trawl through Flikr for tourist photos taken around Lake Van. Across Turkey, odd-eyed white cats with long silky coats are the most prized, and Meowy and Zara Arush spent a long time arguing about whether or not Van cats were all white. The tourists who had photographed the cute kitties did show that the cats in Van come in a variety of colours, including with ring tail markings and a splodge on their back. Zara Arush came up with a secondary source (not her) for a legend about the splodge marking similar to the legend of St Peter's thumbprint on the John Dory. Lushington was given two cats that were said to come from Van, had the thumbprint and ringtail, and liked a swim. When she went to Van, she found other cats that swam and had these markings, reinforcing her belief that this was a separate breed of cat from the whites, which are found all over Turkey. Elen of the Roads (talk) 01:03, 28 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Modern tourist photographic evidence of cats running around in the Van area is utterly worthless, because cat landraces all over the world are losing their genetic distinctiveness, because when people move, they bring their pets with them, and they interbreed. For example, landrace Manx cats are almost extinct on the Isle of Man.  This isn't even on-topic here anyway, but a discussion that belongs at Talk:Van cat, if anyone wants to continue it.  PS: I think it's really inappropriate to swing your mop around like that; it comes across as a thinly veiled "don't argue with me or I'll block you" threat.  That said, I am no defender of Meowy, and have already prepared an entire ARBCOM (well, WP:AE, technically) case against him, if he resumes editwarring on these or other articles in ways that cross the WP:ARBAA2 line. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖ⊝כ⊙þ Contrib.  03:11, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

Can anybody undo the vandalism of one Armenian Հայկ Ափրիկյան?
This type of cat is known as Turkish Van and accepted as such in cat fancy. There is no Armenian Van! --Ankara Kedisi 14:08, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

I wonder how long you Հայկ Ափրիկյան will continue to move this article to Armenian Van. There isn't any Armenian Van! Obvious case of vandalism. Admins please watch this page... --Ankara Kedisi 22:09, 18 April 2013 (UTC)  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ankarakediler (talk • contribs)
 * As usual, it's people confusing this British-developed formal breed, with only tenuous ties to Turkey and maybe none to the Lake Van area, with the Van cat, a landrace native to the Lake Van area of what is today Turkey and formerly partly in Armenia and in what is loosely termed Kurdistan, with Turks, Armenians and Kurds all claiming cultural ties to cats. Not this cat show breed. It's really unfortuate they don't rename this thing the Turkish Bicolor or something.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  10:34, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Dispute about reliable sources of claim of affinity for water
Please see Talk:Van cat. Oddly enough, this arose at Van cat, where the Turkish Van's alleged fondness for water was mentioned, and the conflicting sourcing about this is (maybe it's true, maybe it's not) also mentioned, sparking a revert war. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  10:40, 19 August 2014 (UTC)