User talk:Tolentini

Hello, I've read your comments in the talk page of Codogné. I'm Italian and I'd like to provide you with some links and information which might be helpful for the discussion, you seem to be quite familiar with linguistic matters.

Essentially, the issue is about which sources to rely on. As I said, the point is choosing between the spelling found commonly in the official sites of Italy or the spelling suggested in the Italian encyclopedias. The final choice about the accent to use isn't that important in itself, what really matters is being conscious of pros and cons of each source when making one own's choice. My hope is that this explanation could be of some help in clarifying the issue, no matter which decision will be taken. You can reply this message if you want to ask me or tell me anything, I'll read it. Tolentini (talk) 21:36, 28 June 2021 (UTC)
 * On the one hand, we have sites of the Italian Republic such as the ISTAT and the Gazzetta Ufficiale, or even the site of the city of Codogné, already linked. They have on their side a sort of "officialdom" which should make them the preferable sources. Nevertheless, this discussion hinges on an orthographic matter, and these official sites don't pay much attention to orthography actually: the cities contained in the ISTAT site all end in –è when the final E is accented, while the Gazzetta Ufficiale and the site of the city of Codogné have also pages with the name ending in –é. This is the weak point of entrusting these sites.
 * On the other hand, we have the vocabularies and encyclopedias on the basis of which the page was moved to the current name years ago and recently. They don't have the "officialdom" of the previous national and governmental sites, this is their weak point and a reason not to entrust them. But they were all written by intellectuals, philologists, researchers, true authorities in their fields. Let's leave aside the DIPI and DOP which are more like pronunciations manuals, all right, but the Treccani is "the" encyclopedia par excellence in Italy, while Sapere.it is the only other online Italian encyclopedia. They're generalist encyclopedias we must say, so let me add two more sources: the "Italian dictionary of ethnic names and place names" and "Names of Italy" by DeAgostini Geographical Institute, which register the spelling Codogné too (sadly there's no free online version to consult). The fact that "all" of these sources, both generic and specific, register the same spelling is something worth taking into account.


 * Hi Tolentini,
 * If this were Italian WP, those would all be primary concerns. But they're a bit secondary on English WP. E.g., no matter how Italian atlases etc. spell Firenze, here it's still 'Florence'. And even where English adopts the "authentic" name, it's often inconsistent. I have no problem using e.g. Names of Italy, but that should be a general convention for us, not an argument to be implemented in sporadic articles. I'm not sure it matters too much, as long as we provide the reader with the info they need. — kwami (talk) 21:54, 28 June 2021 (UTC)


 * I think I understand your point. You said that, since this is the English language Wikipedia, reliable sources for pages must be in English. I agree but this is a different issue than your example: Florence, Genoa, Venice, and so on are the official names in English, and they've been for centuries. Codogné is a small city that never had an English version, its name in English is just the Italian name as for other small cities. It isn't even a matter such as "Aosta vs. Aoste", where both the Italian and the French name of the city are official and for English one should choose the most common version used among English speakers. The "problem" of Codogné is just the accent. English doesn't use accents and diacritics in general, so it's understandable that sources in English show different spellings, with both accents and with no accent. If there're big doubts about which accent should be used, then your proposal to use the no-accent version "Codogne" might be a solution, but in this case also the other Italian cities ending with an accent should be moved to the no-accent version, for example the province capital "Forlì" and historic town "Salò"... In my opinion the best solution is still choosing between the Italian sources I mentioned before, English sources themselves base the spelling of this city either on the first group or on the second group. Google Maps, to name one, spells it "Codogné" (while, if you watch south-east, you'll see a city named "Mansuè" with this accent: in this case, official Italian sites agree with encyclopedias in Italian about the spelling). Tolentini (talk) 15:24, 30 June 2021 (UTC)