Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2022 December 31

= December 31 =

Help with Persian
Scholarly sources say that the Persian name of Mount Ararat is کوه نوح, Kūh-e Nūḥ, which is presumably the traditional name. But Persian Wikipedia has کوه آرارات (Ararat). So can any native Persian speaker help figure this out. Is Kūh-e Nūḥ the traditional name and is not currently in use? What do Persian maps say? Thanks. --Ե րևանցի talk 13:20, 31 December 2022 (UTC)


 * I can't directly answer your question, but I can tell you that the word NuH refers to "Noah" of the Old Testament. The name "Ararat" is much older, since it goes back to Urartu... AnonMoos (talk) 15:47, 31 December 2022 (UTC)
 * The section calls it the traditional Persian name. Although the Persian Wikipedia refers to the legend that Noah's Ark landed there after the Flood, it does not mention this as a name for the mountain, but I suppose that tradition-minded speakers of Persian may use this name, and that it may also be used for literary effect.  --Lambiam 18:15, 31 December 2022 (UTC)
 * The Encyclopædia Iranica article gives Kūh-e Nūḥ as the Persian name. Encyclopædia Iranica is regarded as a Reliable source, unlike Wikipedia itself. TSventon (talk) 21:53, 31 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Persian speakers on Wikipedia are reliable sources for names, words in the language, and transliterations in and out of the language. Elizium23 (talk) 22:44, 31 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Elizium23, that is debatable, No original research says "Faithfully translating sourced material into English ... is not considered original research." TSventon (talk) 23:03, 31 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Wikipedians who speak a language are authoritative sources for those languages. Elizium23 (talk) 23:20, 31 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Maybe authoritative as far as you and I are concerned, but they cannot serve as RS in the sense of WP:RS, which requires the source to be published (and not self-published). --Lambiam 10:48, 1 January 2023 (UTC)

Although many Persians know the story of Kūh-e Nūḥ (Noah's Mountain), it is not the common name of the mountain. Ararat is the name everyone is familiar with. Omidinist (talk) 03:03, 1 January 2023 (UTC)


 * There are several Persian books that use the name explicitly as a synonym, "Ararat or Noah's Mountain". --Lambiam 11:08, 1 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Yes, they are synonym, but if you say Noah's Mountain, common people don't understand what you are talking about. Omidinist (talk) 11:42, 1 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Would there be any difference in usage if you'd be referring to the mountain as a mythological or geographical location? 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 12:52, 1 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Ararat has no mythological connotation in Persian. As a matter of fact, it could be the name of an Armenian or a supermarket in Iran. But only bookish Persians might know anything about Noah's Mountain. Omidinist (talk) 13:19, 1 January 2023 (UTC)
 * The Bible actually says the ark landed on "the mountains of Ararat", which could mean "the mountains of Urartu". It doesn't say it landed on the specific peak we now call Mt Ararat. --  Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  17:15, 1 January 2023 (UTC)
 * What we now call Mt Ararat is not one specific peak but two. --2A02:5080:2F07:FA00:C097:BD26:4700:8DDC (talk) 20:19, 1 January 2023 (UTC)
 * What the Bible says is not terribly relevant to how these terms are understood (or not understood) in Iran. Actually, according to sūrah Hud, the ark came to rest on a place ٱلْجُودِىِّ (al jūdiy), traditionally interpreted as a proper noun, assigned to Mount Judi. (The triconsonantal root ج و د‎ (JWD) means something like excellence, and written without vowel signs the term is the same as the feminine elative of a related adjective and so can have meant something like "the most excellent" or perhaps "the highest".) --Lambiam 01:57, 2 January 2023 (UTC)