User talk:BaseDrum

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ISSUE:
The translation into English of the article title and unit name of the traditional French-Canadian “Royal 22e Régiment” is contested as not being consistent with English Wikipedia policy.

WIKIPEDIA POLICY includes 3 sections of particular importance to this issue: (1) when to change existing titles, (2) policy for government organizations, and (3) the need to choose names in common use.

(1) CONSIDERING TITLE CHANGES:
Section 10 of the Policy, (1) Considering titles changes, strongly discourages editing simply to change one controversial title to another, noting that there are many other ways to improve Wikipedia than such unproductive debating. “If an article title has ... not been challenged to a significant degree as well as not moved for a long time, and there is no good reason to change it, it should not be changed”. The article on the Royal 22e Régiment reflects these stable conditions. The current change being pursued, when it becomes known, could well generate sustained “unproductive debate”.

The remainder of this paper deals with the issue of whether there are indeed “good reasons” to change both the article title and the regiment's name, despite the debate likely to flow from it.

(2) GUIDELINES FOR GOVERNMENT AGENCIES:
The Guidelines for naming government organizatiions are more restricitve than is Wikipedia policy on common names. They recommend that the official name of an organization be used, unless an agency is almost always known by an acronymn. When the native title is not in English, it should nevertheless be used “when reliable sources in the English language commonly use the native titles. For example, ... Bundestag (not Parliament of Germany)”. Thus, in establishing titles and naming government organizations, the need is not to demonstrate that one version of a title is more frequently used than an another. The requirement is simply to establish whether reliable sources in the English language commonly use the official native title.

This policy is widely followed in Wikipedia, as the following examples of naming non-English units demonstrates:
 * German titles: Luftwaffe, Wehrmacht, Panzergrenadier, Bundeswehr, Waffen-SS.
 * French titles: French Gendarmerie, Maquis, Fusiliers Marins, Force de Frappe
 * Other nations: Italian carabinieri, Israeli Mossad, Russian KGB
 * Canadian titles: many French-language military units such as the 12eRBC, the FMR, Fusiliers de Sherbroke, Régiment de la Chaudière, etc. As well Quebec's provincial police force is shown by its French name, reflecting current practice in Canada.

(3) COMMON NAMES:
The WP section on common names gives advice on how to determine which of several alternative names is most frequently used by "reliable sources". The following data reflects observations of name usage as recommended. However, the time frame under observation was narrowed to reflect mainly the 21st Century (from 2000), the last five years and the past year. The reasons are: First, Following World War II, and throughout the latter half of the 20th Century, significant changes in language use occured, including legislation such as the Official Languages Act in 19xx, as well as changes in both education and attitude of Canadian society that made Canadians more open to the French language. Data on language use prior to this period would be most misleading in the determination of the commonly used current title for this French-Canadian regiment. Secondly, Internet search engines are unable to accurately quantify the date or the number of older references to the regiment. Users are warned not to rely on superficially scanned and indexed historic data. "Anytime" searches, giving millions of hits, disappear when a time-frame filter is applied. Users are warned not to rely on quantitative searches going back further than 2000.

The names in common use are:


 * Official title: Royal 22e Régiment (accent on é in Régiment is often dropped and the e on 22, that should be in superscript, is sometimes completely eliminated in English texts using the official title)


 * Anglicised title: Royal 22nd Regiment (was the official title until changed to a French title in 1928; it has taken several generations to implement this change amongst English-speakers.)
 * Nick name: Van Doos (or Vandoos) (a good-natured English reference, respecting the French nature of the "vingt-deux" soldiers)

Official Sources
It was observed that Government sources at all levels from the Queen, through the various echelons of government to the local offices, now use the official title of the regiment almost exclusively in English communications (90% - 100%).

The Queen
The Queen, Head of the Commonwealth (53 English-speaking countries) and Head of State of 15, is an incontestably "reliable source" in the English language, as used internationally and nationally, in regard to the names of the Regiments she has honoured by serving as their Colonel-in-Chief. The website of the British Monarchy, on its U.K. domain,  states: "The Queen  (acts) as Colonel-in-Chief of various regiments (including)....Le Royal 22e Régiment ..."

Canada's Department of National Defence
The Directorate of History and Heritage at Canada's defence department, in an English document, gives the name, history and status of the regiment, that has been known as the Royal 22e Régiment in both French and English since 1928.

Other clearly reliable official sources are the official histories that were published of the Canadian Army in World War II 1 and in the Korean War . In every volume of the histories, starting with those covering World War II (1939-1945),the regiment was described exclusively according to its official title in narratives, on maps, in tables of units, etc. This approach has continued to the present day.

Canadian Government usage
The domain ".gc.ca" is used by the many agencies of government. A "Google" search of English pages gave the number of hits for the official and anglicised versions of the regimental title for various periods, on this domain. Here it is shown that the official regimental title has reached a current level of use of 90% in English documents.

Reliable Sources: Encyclopaedias, Books and News Archives:
WP recommends a search of encyclopaedias, books and news archives in order to obtain the most “reliable” data. However, Encyclopaedia Britannica, using its own advanced search feature, showed no articles for our regimental title. The Canadian Encyclopaedia was examined; its main article on Canadian military structure and regiments identified clearly the name of the regiment by its official “native” title. However, other subsidiary articles had references to the Anglicised version, in historical articles, or references in biographies of individuals who had served at some time in the regiment, that resulted in a higher number of hits for the Anglicized title. The search of our own Wikipedia encyclopaedia showed significantly greater current detail on Canadian military units, with far more "hits" for the official title and nick name than for the Anglicised version of the Royal 22e Régiment.

In accordance with WP recommendations for reliable sources, a search was done of Google Books and Google News Archive. The Huffington Post was also added. All these sources reflect more frequent use of the official title of the regiment. The following summary of the search of encyclopaedias, books and news archives tends to show that reliable English sources not only use the native title, but in most examples, the anglicised version is in distinctly lesser use than the native title and even the nickname.

Search Engines, News Media and Social Media :
The more widely used media, while not necessarily reliable, nevertheless provide a good indication of the language used by the general population. Wikipedia recommends that it be searched as well. The following table summarizes the result of that search, confirming the common use of the official native title and indeed, the relatively lesser use of the Anglicised version.