Talk:Wrocław

Wrocław ? Could we please find the closest English equivalent?
"Wrocław" cannot be pronounced in English, there is no ł in English. The choice sounds like polish nationalism. I mean one cannot even type it to find it in the English wikipedia with only a latin alphabet keyboard.

What would be the closest english equivalent to Wrocław in English?

Also before saying "but this is how is spelled in Polish!" (this reasoning is very pervasive in articles about Polish places) remember that in English things are different. It is like saying "Włochy - Polish word for Italy - is not even close to Italia, and Italia is how Italy is spelled in Italian, so please change your language accordingly" (one could do the same with other names of non-polish places in Polish). It is silly.

So while I see that is not possible to use the English name Breslau, because then some people are triggered (although it is just a label for a place, really), could you please find the closest possible in English for "Wrocław" that avoids having the "ł" ? Intuitively I would say "Wroclaw" but I understand that "ł" and "l" in the name are not interchangeable and if I listed to the audio it feels like "Vrotsvaf" (that again is not even close to Wroclaw with a L).

In general I see that if a community (in this case the Polish one) wants that their names are used in other languages, at least they should provide equivalent names using the properties of the other language. That is, one cannot simply import new characters (imagine what it would would happen for all Cyricllic or Chinese or Korean or Danish or  names). Pier4r (talk) 11:04, 3 October 2022 (UTC)


 * The " ł " seems to me to be like a "soft" w sound in English, like the start of the French word "oiseau". As such "Vrotsvaf" doesn't seem quite right with a "v" in that position. I'd say "Vrotsuaf" except that suggests the sound in "taught". "Vrotsooaf" maybe? Article is lacking an IPA guide. Captainllama (talk) 01:38, 4 October 2022 (UTC)


 * I am not sure whether either of you is a native Polish speaker (I am) but to my ear the closest English transcription would be Vrotswaf (alternatively Vrotswaff or Vrotzwaf). Personally, I prefer the first version which I put in bold. Merangs (talk) 13:51, 4 October 2022 (UTC)


 * I can live with Vrotswaf, at least it can be written and makes sense. Thank you. 78.55.27.98 (talk) 19:28, 31 October 2022 (UTC)


 * English pronunciations are already given in the lead sentence, hidden under note a. Maybe they should be unhidden and some stuff (e.g. the Latin and Silesian German names) moved out of the lead sentence into an Etymology section to unclutter it. To the comment that "one cannot type it to find it in the English wikipedia with only a "Latin alphabet" keyboard" (assuming you mean an English keyboard layout), one can, as the redirect Wroclaw exists. If you're suggesting we should claim that the English name of the city is "Vrotswaf", which is unattested in any source, that would be complete bollocks and violate both WP:OR and WP:V. English generally doesn't respell foreign names as spelling pronunciations. – filelakeshoe (t / c) 🐱 14:40, 4 October 2022 (UTC)


 * "English generally doesn't respell foreign names as spelling pronunciations" sure, but then they could be at least be typed and pronounced. For example if Breslau is unwanted as name and the current English name of the city is Wroclaw, then it should be that in the title rather than the Polish version. Because otherwise for consistency we should have 서울 for the article about Seoul, but we don't . Nor I am sure whether one can use the pronunciation of Wroclaw (in English), as the IPA for that is missing. So my point is - although it should have been obvious: either the title gets reverted to the English spelling with English pronunciation, thus "Wroclaw" plus "Wroclaw" IPA (and no "ł" ) or every other city that has no Latin spelling gets its own original spelling in the title, thus 서울 for Seoul. That would be consistent, rather than "some cities strangely gets the title in their own language, some don't". And I wouldn't mind Vrotswaf but as you mentioned it would be defined only in this talk. 78.55.27.98 (talk) 19:29, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
 * The English equivalent is Wroclaw, pronounced as closest to the polish official form as possible ("vrotswaf"?)
 * There is no ł in the English language.
 * People here are too obtuse for strange reasons. 2A00:1028:8384:6762:B559:ACA5:E726:964B (talk) 17:30, 15 August 2023 (UTC)

What exactly is the point of this demand? If a foreign place is referred to frequently enough in a language, a genuine equivalent (take the examples of Naples, Cologne or the now apparently obsolete Saragossa) will eventually be worked out through usage and that normally takes into account both the original pronunciation (not spelling!), various features and conventions of the language into which the name is being introduced, and perhaps also what the name is derived from. Something along the lines of "Vrotslav" would make much better sense to me than a pseudo-transcription like "Vrotswaf" - the point of translating a name is hardly to create a pronunciation shorthand for sports commentators to fall back on. And reducing derived Latin letters (same with "å", "ø", or "ñ"?) to their basic form seems like a still more dumbed-down (and rushed) procedure for creating this equivalent. As far as I am aware, it is still lazy spelling and not an "English spelling" or "English equivalent" to write "Besancon" for "Besançon", or "Monchengladbach" for ""Mönchengladbach" - and it hardly helps in getting the pronunciation of any of these names right. Are we going to also drop all "diacritics" in Turkish, Romanian, Hungarian, Czech placenames, regardless of the phonetic value? I am not sure that it would be desirable either to rigorously transcribe them into the English convention ("ş", "š" -> "sh") with no regard for the native spelling established in Latin script. If we want to make everything easy to type, then should we also convert the unnecessarily convoluted pound symbol (£), which most non-British keyboards won't have, to "L" (or a combination thereof) in "international" usage? It is derived from the letter "L" just like the Polish "Ł" is. VampaVampa (talk) 09:53, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

Wrocław University did not produce any Nobel prize laureates
Unless we assume that "university" means the building. It's an attempt to give the current University credit for achievements of the previous institution, Wrocław University in its present form did not exist before WW2. 79.140.113.122 (talk) 20:45, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

Prominent use of "Breslau" should be reflected in lede
Hello all. I think giving the name "Breslau" more prominence in the lede, preferably bolded and outside of a language tag, would improve this article for a number of reasons: In short, I think mentioning the name "Breslau" in the lede, bolded, would both acknowledge the current-day use and prolific historical use of the name, while also cutting back on potential confusion among readers. I encourage discussion on this matter and would like to hear what other users have to say. Durchbruchmüller (talk) 00:51, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
 * 1) It is the historical name of the city, used for at least approximately four centuries. The name still proliferates historical literature on the subject (any book that mentions the city in WWII, for instance).
 * 2) Current lede could be confusing readers. Individuals searching for "Breslau" will be led to this article, only to be confronted a city named "Wrocław" (confusing and difficult to read/pronounce in English), with no mention of Breslau in the lede save for being couched in a confusing slough of phonetic pronunciations. The lack of mention in the lede except in language tags also means the name "Breslau" is excluded from mention in extensions or shortcuts, or places such as Google, again potentially confusing readers.
 * 3) While perhaps not the WP:COMMONNAME, it is still used prominently in contemporary English. If you mention "Wrocław" to your typical English-speaker, they will not know what you are talking about. Many more will recognize "Breslau".
 * 4) There is 22 years of precedent for this, on this specific Wikipedia article. You can go back as far as 2002 and you will find the name "Breslau" bolded and in the lede.


 * "Breslau" is a German exonym, not an English one. As there is no English exonym for the city, it is referred to by its native name - that is Wrocław. This name is also the bolded one in the article.
 * In English, the name Breslau is definitely used to talk about the city when referring to its German past (wouldn't say so about present day) and it is appropriately provided in the brackets as the German name. An English-speaking user searching for "Breslau" would be presented with the article that talks about "Wrocław," using its modern-day common name. Additionally, other relevant names are provided in the Wrocław section of the article, so I doubt any reader would be confused when researching the city.
 * As far as I'm aware, there is no consensus on Wikipedia to bold historic names of cities in the articles' ledes - look at Gdańsk (Danzig) or Lviv (Lwów). Compare it with articles about places like Bautzen/Budyšin or Cottbus/Chóśebuz where both the names are official and used.
 * Making "Breslau" bolded in the lede would cause it to be perceived as an alternative for "Wrocław." If you look for "Breslau" in online dictionaries, most of them define it as the German name for "Wrocław" . Even for those that do define it as a synonym of Wrocław, the citations they provide refer to the pre-1945 city.
 * In contemporary English, if we are talking about the modern-day city, the German name is not used. Neither is the Czech, Hungarian or Latin one. Max19582 (talk) 09:54, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
 * I agree with the argument presented by Max19582 that making it in bold would prompt users/readers to believe that Breslau is an alternative and also an accepted name for the modern city. I fully understand the importance of the former name within a historical context and there is no debate around that as well as its official use on German Wikipedia. However, as this is English Wikipedia, it can be left in the parenthetical line as in other Polish city articles for complete neutrality. Merangs (talk) 22:05, 22 February 2024 (UTC)