Talk:Water castle

Is there such a thing?
I am not convinced there is such a thing as a "water castle" in English. The title and the article appear to be a literal translations from German and the article is entirely uncited. Should it be merged with moat? Google finds no relevant hits for "water castle" apart from this article. We could equally translate the term from French, in which "chateau d'eau" means a water tower. Cyclopaedic (talk) 18:01, 19 July 2014 (UTC)


 * As explained in the article, a moated castle is a type of water castle, so merging this with moat would cause confusion as not all water castles are moated.
 * The term tends to be used of castles in Europe, where they occur in greater numbers. Here are some examples:

Bermicourt (talk) 21:28, 19 July 2014 (UTC)
 * The Medieval Fortress: Castles, Forts and Walled Cities of the Middle Ages (2004): "Not far from the modern day capital of Brussels... stands the water castle of Beersel."
 * Château Gaillard: études de castellologie médiévale, V : actes du colloque (1994): "...and Kirby Muxloe, Leicestershire, at a comparable quadrilateral water castle..."
 * Flanders (1993): "Wulveringem, a district of Veurne, is renowned principally for Beauvoorde water castle".
 * The Rhine and its castles (1957): "...Gudenau. It is a water castle on the way to the Ahr valley..."
 * American Architect and Architecture: "...whether Roman, Renaissance, Medieval or Rococo; whether hill or water castle..."


 * I'm happy with the article's current scope. Merging the article wouldn't be entirely accurate, as you could have dry moats. Nev1 (talk) 08:51, 20 July 2014 (UTC)


 * I've now seen lowland castle and it seems a whole series of articles on the classification of castles has been translated from the German. Most or the references cited above look like translations. I don't think English-language Wikipedia should be importing its article structure, and writing articles about a classification and technical terms that only exist in German, unless we are writing specifically about German castles. There are plenty of English-language sources and terms about castles. finding UK examples of castles that fit this German classification system doesn't make it an appropriate structure for English Wikipedia. If we want to explain the German analysis, an article on Castles in Germany might be appropriate; at present that redirects to List of castles in Germany - though it seems there are only 16 of them. Cyclopaedic (talk) 10:00, 20 July 2014 (UTC)


 * The references above are all English language sources, not translations. I'm satisfied the term is used in English alongside the more common subordinate term, "moated castle".
 * "Lowland castle", etc., are also terms used in English language sources.
 * Wikipedia doesn't exclude scholarly articles simply because they originate in another language. Otherwise we would close off vast areas of scholarly research.
 * The descriptions are general and not limited to modern-day Germany. So applying the terms purely to Germany would be artificial.
 * Look more closely at List of castles in Germany - there are links to the 16 lists of castles in German states, not just 16 castles.
 * Bermicourt (talk) 10:54, 20 July 2014 (UTC)


 * I wouldn't care if all the sources were in German, French, or Russian; this isn't an encyclopedia of English thought. If it's verifiable that's all that’s needed. Add that to the fact that it can be found in publications such as Château Gaillard – the leading international journal on castle studies – should be enough to demonstrate the term is genuine. The question about scope was fair, but as has been pointed out moat and water castle are not interchangeable terms. Nev1 (talk) 12:00, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

I'd agree that the sources don't need to be in English and that the term is a genuine one. I think that it might be worth stressing in the intro that the term tends to be primarily used by European (non-British European!) academics etc., and some references in the article itself would be really great (I think it's currently unreferenced). Hchc2009 (talk) 15:28, 20 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks Hchc. I'm happy to work on that. Bermicourt (talk) 15:30, 20 July 2014 (UTC)
 * To cap this off I have now cited an actual English definition of a water castle by James Forde-Johnston in Great Medieval Castles of Britain which must also count as a pretty authoritative English language source... and in a book about British castles! Bermicourt (talk) 20:27, 20 July 2014 (UTC)


 * No, there is indeed no such thing in English.  did in no way close the discussion. He misunderstood radically what articles in encyclopedias of a certain language are all about and has serially produced literal translations of strictly German terms into English, diligently creating "articles" about non-existent terms. There is not a single example of a UK "water castle" anywhere on the Net, which should close the discussion. On all the castles listed here as "examples for UK water castles", there is not a single enWiki article using the term. Not in the intro, not in the sections, not anywhere. None. Discussion closed. Now we even have such a category (!), "Category:Water castles", added by somebody who openly states that he's mainly editing on Danish Wikipedia - Germanic languages and languages under German influence, such as Czech & Slovak, do have such a term, but English does not, which is all we need to know. The so-called reference from a prestigious UK source is made up: it actually quotes the German word Wasserburg or Wasserschloß and gives the literal English translation between quotation marks for those who don't speak German. It never uses "water castle" as an English term. It's like creating an English entry on "Being on the wooden path". Don't know what I'm talking about? Naturally, since it's a German expression, and only German, meaning: you're making a mistake, chose the wrong attitude, cause, or argument. Quod erat demonstrandum. Now we need to deal with this whole mess of many, many articles on non-existing terms. They not only mislead the user, but stay in the way of articles on real, existing English terms (for instance "moated castle"). Naturally, they're also dead inventory, since they don't connect to any organic, real terminology and are just creating useless, isolated ballast. This should have been stopped long ago, but the fact that for 7 years nobody bothered to look up this talk-page is another proof that this is as dead a corpse as there's ever been on enWiki. Arminden (talk) 01:02, 11 March 2021 (UTC)


 * Stop ranting and making personal attacks. You are entirely wrong. Water castles exist all over Europe and the usual English translation or term for the local word - whether in German, Swedish or whatever - is... unsurprisingly "water castle". So the article is entirely valid as are all the others - the only issue here is the article title. An English equivalent doesn't have to appear in thousands of sources or be listed in the Penguin book of Castles to become a "term"; a few English references will suffice. So if you don't like the title, feel free suggest a better one, but you'll have a problem because Wasserburg is German and other countries use their own terms. Whatever we call it, the article is about a real 'thing'. It is illogical to imply that some subjects only exist in foreign languages and not in English because we don't have a word for it. However, in this case we do. Bermicourt (talk) 08:19, 11 March 2021 (UTC)


 * You didn't get my point. You don't have an article on "Topfbauch" on German Wiki because there's no such thing in German. "Pot belly" in English is a thing. "Beer belly" and "Bierbauch" exists in both, so you can have both. Wiki articles in different languages on the same identical topic are connected. You might want to also link a "Pot belly" article, and not just the one on "Beer belly", to the German article on "Bierbauch", but that would be problematic. See what I mean? Reality is what exists.
 * The very much valid English term "moated castle" doesn't have a proper article, but is just an appendix to your non-existent "water castle". Harmful, not just wrong.
 * Languages are living, organic structures. It's not for nothing that the term "water castle" does not exist, period, in any text written and published by English native-speakers. None would think of it, or look it up here. And there you have the reason why an English encyclopedia must work in accordance with the English lexical reality. You have to adapt, not the language.
 * Your articles are plain translations of the German articles. Those are constructed around a German concept. This leads to a different structure than one of a related English article entitled, say, moated castle. Nothing, down to the citation templates, are the same. The fact that you translated even the references (not always fully, to the end) is another point: in English the template is qute different, and "S." definitely doesn't suggest to any user the page number; that's p. or pp. But it's not these details that matter, although you simply cannot dump foreign-language references wholesale on the user. The issue is that articles need to serve a purpose, and non-words don't attract readers, and hinder the creation of real-word articles (structured according to a language and culture, not just with an "adapted" title), and is therefore harmful. Wiki also spreads information, and a lot of non-native speakers will try to fifind this & that "water castle" in the UK, and get stunned facial expressions in response.
 * In some languages, "water castle" means "water tower", "Wasserturm", a tall water reservoir creating head pressure. They probably all adopted it from French (see here). Did you know that? Languages don't mix one-to-one. What if a Monsieur Francois Meunier went around creating an English article on "Water castles" containing only material on water towers? And that's that, have a nice weekend. Arminden (talk) 14:07, 11 March 2021 (UTC)


 * I completely get your 'point'. I just don't agree with your logic; your examples are wild exaggerations that no-one would seriously contemplate and your fears about non-native English speakers asking the way to an English water castle are equally fanciful. So forget pot bellies and try to focus on your issue which appears to be that you don't like the article title "water castle". Clearly the subject exists since there are plenty of them out there; they are just not often written about in English sources since Britain and America don't have many. But when English authors write about them they don't call them Wasserburgen, they call them water castles as evinced by the sources I cited above. So what alternative title would you propose? Bermicourt (talk) 15:01, 11 March 2021 (UTC)


 * Wrong. I'm yet to see one single case of an English author of any degree of authority in this field to use "water castle", "fortified tower" as opposed to simply "tower" when writing about fortifications, "lowland castle", "marsh castle", "bridge castle", or "rock castle" as a term. Languages choose what loanwords they wish to adopt. Forcing them on the language is a non-starter. And what Wiki editor has the authority to adopt "water castle" into English from German, rather than French, which would make it a water supply tower rather than a fortified place? This is a more stringent case, but the beef is that you can't poor a new English terminology on a whole subject into a German-only mold. That's not up to any of us here. It's against the spirit of the language. Each time anyone violates a language to fit a foreign culture, it hurts, looks bad, and doesn't catch on. One good proof is how little any of these articles have evolved over many years. Those who organically fit into a topic, and castles are many people's hobby, get recombined, cross-referenced, merged, worked on constantly. These have remained isolated orphans. The approach to things in general and castles in particular works differently in English. One-to-one translations from a different culture is a stillborn exercise. The Wiki project has a different approach, when successful. Arminden (talk) 22:42, 11 March 2021 (UTC)


 * Well let's focus on this article or we'll never resolve anything. I have provided evidence that "water castle" is used in English sources for this type of castle; you need to do the same to show that Wasserburg is the more common term in English sources. Until there is a consensus, we should not change that part of the article. That's the Wiki process.
 * In an effort to follow WP:BRD, I've reverted your recent edits, but since they weren't all to do with the issue of "water castle v. Wasserburg" and I actually support many of them, I've reinstated the majority in good faith. Bermicourt (talk) 13:02, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

Great, thanks for the constructive approach. But did you see what I proposed here?

Now to the current edits: there is only one single source for the whole article, Forde-Johnston, covering just one sentence. Do you have his book? To me only a short snippet is available online, where the end of the sentence is missing (but you get the idea anyway). I've set a tag regarding this. I've copied the exact quote for a reason. Here it is again: "... Caister is based on the Wasserburg of the Rhine area in Germany. Wasserburg means literally 'water castle' and denotes a castle in which water plays a...". He doesn't use "water castle" anywhere, just offers it as the translation of "Wasserburg". Very different concept. Btw, he doesn't mention "Wasserschloss", which isn't a castle anymore but a manor or palace, that topic isn't really part of this and is dealt with sufficiently under "Legacy", as a later development. So we have no reference to any English academic RS using an English term "water castle". We simply don't have any. And honestly, I went spending a lot of time through ALL Google hits on that and there wasn't a single one anywhere. Only translations and tourist ads from the usual suspects (GE AU CH, BeNeLux, Skand, Central Eu), one 19th-century US imitation of a castle, cottages with pretentious names, "Narrow Water Castle" where "Narrow Water" is the root name, and that was it. That made me be so sure of what I was writing in my first posts, more angrily than I should have, sorry for that, but accurate nevertheless. So you have not presented yet reference in the article, not even for a vernacular use of the term other than by journalists and other non-specialists who literally translated from German. We don't take those as sources.

Lowland castle for "Niederungsburg" seems to be a very similar case, except that, other than with "water castle", people do sometimes describe situations like "family X moved from their lowland castle to a better defended one at..." Still, it shows up. "Low-laying castle" however appears in more scholarly sounding context. But that's for that talk-page.

There were a couple of cases apart from Forde-Johnston where the English author did quote the original German term and went on describing British or other examples. But I never said that "Waserburg" is so well-established in English as to use it as the article's title.

I do gain knowledge from seeing all these examples of water-protected castles, and so would others, that's why I wrote to Srnec what I think would be best. But to keep this article under whatever name and form, it would definitely need more than one very week reference (which is actually none). I don't even know where Germans start talking of a Wasserburg, a lake shore castle isn't surrounded by water, only has it on one side - see Chillon Castle (CH), offered as an example in the article. So if it's just you & me adding examples because the photo seems to fit the description, or because we've been there, that's just not good enough. There need to be RS describing the castles as water-surrounded, Wasserburg, whatever we have in the definition from the intro/lead. That's also why there cannot be an article without a definition, and making up a definitions as one goes along is not an option. There's no escape, I didn't make it up. Cheers, Arminden (talk) 17:11, 12 March 2021 (UTC)


 * I've been tracking down and adding references and only just seen this. I'll ponder and come back to you as I'm now tied up elsewhere at the moment. Thanks for being positive. Bermicourt (talk) 19:25, 12 March 2021 (UTC)


 * Happy to co-operate, but please, let's stay factual. All examples here-below except Fry are from the "usual suspects" category: all are from, or relate to, Germany & its satellites or cultural surroundings. They are making my point, not yours. I now need to see the Fry text with a bit more context, and also about who Fry is. The Kaufmanns you can forget, that's what I meant with the need of a better research: he's a professors of Romance languages and she of Spanish. I can also write about Alpha Centauri and earthworms, but I wouldn't be RS. As you can see, not everything that looks like a source & good argument is one, so until we agree here, please don't revert the article text, especially not the lead. Thank you, Arminden (talk) 10:53, 13 March 2021 (UTC)

Examples of sources
It may help to gather a few examples of different sources to get a feel for usage. Some have been added to the article. This is not comprehensive as there are way too many. "Water castle" is also attested in ngram viewer as a long established term going back over a century.


 * _ (2001). Historic Houses, Castles and Gardens. "Schloss Neuenstein, a water castle from the 11th century..."
 * _ (2005). Proceedings of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology and History, Vol. 41, Part 1. "Framlingham, Bodiam, Kenilworth and Leeds Castles are all seen as examples of what have been called water castles..."
 * Barrus (1988). "Schlosshotel Lembeck is another moated water castle that is more museum than hotel ."
 * Copelof (2012). Discovering Germany. "Bad Rappenau is very famous for its ritzy spas, ornate garden, and Wasserschloss or water castle that appears to float on the water."
 * Falkenberg (2008). Luxury Private Gardens. "Amid the marshy Frisian landscape lies the Baroque water castle of Göden..."
 * Forde-Johnston (1981). A Guide to the Castles of England and Wales. "... and the second that it was built on the lines of a German Wasserburg (literally water-castle) of the lower Rhineland area, and as such is virtually unique..."
 * Fry (1996). Castles of Britain and Ireland: The Ultimate Reference Book. "Two major castles in Britain which may be classified as water-castles or lake-fortresses ... are Kenilworth in Warwickshire and Caerphilly in Wales..."
 * Gothein and Wright (2014). A History of Garden Art. "...the form given by Augustus to the old water-castle of his ancestors, the Moritzburg at Dresden." "The canal not only goes round the garden... but also round the house itself, thus giving it the character of a water-castle."
 * Götz et al. Vom Alten Norden Zum Neuen Europa. "We were born (1938 and 1945) in Flensburg and grew up in nearby Glücksburg with a constant view of the water castle (Schloss Glücksburg)"
 * Kaufmann and Kaufmann (2004) The Medieval Fortress: Castles, Forts and Walled Cities of the Middle Ages. "Not far from the modern-day capital of Brussels, in the Brabant region, stands the water castle of Beersel."
 * Long (1973). Castle-hotels of Europe "Built about 1400 as a water-castle, Schloss Lehen..."
 * Ludvik and Mohyla (1989). Czechoslovakia. "ŠVIHOV, a Late Gothic water castle N of Klatovy..."
 * Medonis (1970). Trakai. "The Trakai insular castle is the only genuine water castle in Lithuania." (Note also the term "insular castle").
 * Mrusek (1974). Castles of Europe. "Muiderslot, near Muiden. The square layout of this castle with the round towers at the corners and the square gate-tower with the drawbridge over the moat is typical of the water castles of Northern Europe."
 * Taylor (2009). The Castles of the Rhine. "Boosenburg or the Oberburg, in Rüdesheim had been built in the twelfth century as a water-castle close to the river (Fig. 29)."
 * Vestner (1988). Germany. "Schloß Bückeburg. Water castle dating back to the 12th century in Bückeburg."
 * Yamaguchi (1964). We Japanese. "The Mizuki or water-castle was built in Tsukushi in 670 by keeping water inside a large embankment."

Bermicourt (talk) 09:41, 13 March 2021 (UTC)


 * Pretty much none stands. As noted above: all but one are either not British, or writing about the known areas of German influence (with one exotic exception, Japan). The only apparent exception is Plantagenet Somerset Fry, and I looked up both him and his book: hes's more of a university dropout with an eccentric life who added Plantagenet and Somerset to his name to make himself sound more posh, and then "wrote numerous popular books about history for adults and for children, as well as books about antiques", while the quote is from a glossy illustrated book targeting mainly youth and published by Abbeville. Not really RS.


 * The other British authors clearly refer to foreign, not adopted terms they need to introduce ("of what have been called", "a German Wasserburg (literally water-castle)"). Moritzburg is a German (!) Baroque (!) palace (!), so a Wasserschloss, no castle at all. Kaufmann & Kaufmann: as said, both are American Romance languages professors with a hobby.


 * Check out real castle researchers: classics, Denys Pringle, Stuart Prior, and so on, dozens of highly qualified academics writing on the subject. Not those translated or non-native speaking German, Czech and Slovenian authors or popular books for teenagers. So the standard for RS is: native English speakers, who are specialised in the subject and write academic books or articles. Of whom there are plenty. Let's save us a lot of wasted time and agree that unless there are such solid academic sources to draw on, we drop this useless back-and-forth ping-pong game. A suggestion: the way I often go about it in such a case is find the right books on Google Books or academia.org, see what they write and use that. So not the other way round, google for the term I want to push, and list up the hits under "references", no matter their worth. Thanks, Arminden (talk) 12:39, 13 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Another acceptable approach: search for RS on all the British castles listed here as examples and see how they're described by authors who correspond to the RS criteria. See what term(s) they use, if any, for water-protected castles. If there is no such well-accepted term in English RS, I go back to my suggestion: we keep this material, because it is useful, but don't pretend that there is such a term, and rename the article accordingly, "water-protected castles" or alike, with a stress on the German terminology and classification. We can then have a redirect for "water castle" with hatnotes addressing the caveats (French château d'eau = water tower, restricted to medieval castles by exclusion of earlier water-protected fortifications and later manors/palaces), and after adding a list of fortification types in the main Castles article, we can place there a "main" tag connecting to this article. Elegant, addressing all issues, easy to access and find by users and editors, with this topic placed in its right context. What on earth do you have to object to it, other than not allowing "your baby" to be helped along by others? Why spend time on fruitless attempts to proof something that is obviously questionable at best, and non-existent at worst, rather than bringing it forward? You are a very active, diligent editor, I can easily see you implementing what I have suggested. Why not? And that really is a constructive proposal. Arminden (talk) 13:18, 13 March 2021 (UTC)


 * Please then point to the Wikipedia guideline that says article titles must be defined in specialist literature. My understanding is that Wikipedia prefers the WP:COMMONNAME which is generally that term most commonly used in English sources. The small sample above simply demonstrates that the term is widespread across a whole range of English literature types. And BTW reliable sources are not simply confined to a few experts chosen without consensus. In particular, the notion that reliable sources must be by British authors and that foreign writers don't count, is totally untenable. There's no way that Wikipedia will accept that line of argument.
 * It may be more fruitful to accept that the term is widespread and to describe its use in English, pointing out that it's often used to translate Wasserburg and other European terms that may - or may not - have a tighter definition. Bermicourt (talk) 13:24, 13 March 2021 (UTC)


 * If there is a popular name that differs from the official one, like Joe Biden vs. Joseph Biden, it's a non-issue. My problem is with the reflex of some to take a shortcut and use literal translations of foreign expressions when there are existing ones in a language. Did you stop to check whether British castellologists have already come up with good English terms, and if those have caught on? Fact is, again, that none of the articles on UK castles listed by you as examples use the term "water castle". That does say a lot, with castles which are visibly surrounded by water. Any equivalent German article would use "Wasserburg" right from the start, right from the first sentence. That simply means to me that there is no such term in English. It's like describing an English author as "Gruppe 47", based on his style and choice of topics, when that group only covered German-speaking countries and no critic has ever applied the term outside that geo-linguistic area. This is OK in a thesis, and if it's accepted that might even become a norm, but the chance of that happening is close to nil. Here, yes, the term might catch on, but it's our duty to check English (not translated) sources first. Why not translated? It's commonsensical, many translators are taking the same shortcut, only good publishing houses or peer-reviewed journals offer some guarantees against it.
 * Why British? Because Britain has plenty of castles, with millions of people living next to them over centuries and speaking about them daily, and it also has plenty of castle researchers, and among English-speaking countries there is none other in this position. India to a degree, but hardly, and they tend to use British English anyway. Easy answer.
 * If you do indeed find out that British castle researchers haven't come up with any decently well-accepted term, I'm fine with water castle. I'm not fighting reality, just self-created fast-food reality. Once a term is out on Wikipedia, it is copied a million times, w/o any further thought, and that's precisely why casual, thoughtless literal translation from foreign languages upsets me every time. You can easily notice that in our case the more judicious German authors are aware of this problem, and go the same way as Forde: German word first, and 'water castle' strictly as a literal translation, and not as an explanation or standard term & concept ("stehender Begriff").
 * Fair enough? If you do find an established English term satisfying these conditions, that one takes precedence and 'water castle' becomes the redirect. If not, it stays on and "water-protected castle" etc., whatever tentative proposals do exist in British castellology, they become redirects to 'water castle'.
 * However, what we can't compromise on, is a clear definition. If the German concept (beyond the German term) becomes the guideline, we need to translate it and place it in the lead, writing what it is. There seems to be no British concept of water-protected castles going beyond moated castles? Good that we have the Germans, but it needs to be stated right away and very visibly so. We also need to avoid that local patriots start adding Iron Age coastal or lakeside forts, or Baroque palaces etc. to the mix. Don't forget the CH example, you still haven't answered if having water on just part of the perimetre (half? more than half?) qualifies. That's how you go about this in a correct and thorough manner. Cheers, Arminden (talk) 14:56, 14 March 2021 (UTC)
 * PS: Do you have Forde-Johnson's book? That quote really isn't fully included in the Google Books snippet, so I'd like to know if you made an educated guess on how the sentence must end (I readily agree it's logical), or did you have access to the text? Thank you. Arminden (talk) 15:19, 14 March 2021 (UTC)

Gotthard Water Castle
In Switzerland Gotthard mountain region is also called a "water castle" because 4 rivers are going down from ther to the 4 different directions
 * Reuss to the north
 * Rhône to the west
 * Ticino to the south
 * Inn to the east.

This is standard learning in Swiss school system.

Michael Palomino, June 5, 2016 179.7.77.62 (talk) 16:41, 5 June 2016 (UTC)