Talk:Nahiyeh (disambiguation)

Conflict: Ottoman/Arabic term is primary meaning

Nahiyah was an Ottoman territorial admin. division. Many modern successor states are currently using the term. As such, it is often spelled as nahiyeh. I see no reason why 3 hamlets with populations of 200-400 people in Iran should be considered the "primary term" and hold it hostage on enWiki.

I suggest redirecting nahiyeh to nahiyah, and leaving the 3 Iranian hamlets as a subset there, either with a dedicated section if the Persian name has the same original meaning, or at "See also" under a heading "Villages in Iran". Arminden (talk) 04:23, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

• I moved the villages in Iran to Nahiyeh (disambiguation). Shhhnotsoloud (talk) 15:47, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

  Shhhnotsoloud, hi. I really don't understand your move. The transliteration is arbitrary, or a matter of local or period-related fashion. The Iranian places are called the same as the Arabic or Turkic ones. Why isolate them? It's quite common for Middle Eastern topics to pool together all that belongs together, of course indicating the various specifics (the Persian writing is very close to the Arabic one, but not identical, and the Turkic-speaking countries are using Latin or Cyrillic script).

  So what do you think anyone has to gain by keeping the Arabic and Turkic places together, but exiling the Persian ones to another DAB? I can't get you for the life of me, so please help me understand. Cheers, Arminden (talk) 17:28, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

  If there's no good argument in favour of this move, please be so kind and try to put things back as they were, as I'm not sure I know how to undo every aspect of it. Thanks. Arminden (talk) 17:47, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

  @Arminden: There is a very good reason for the rearrangement. Firstly it's important to note (and forgive me, I think you already know this) that Arabic and Persian and the Turkic languages that use Perso-Arabic script are not the same, and despite (largely) the same script are often transliterated differently. I think it is more likely that Arabic: ناحية would be transliterated as 'Nahiyah', and Persian: ناحية as 'Nahiyeh', it comes down to how you treat the ة. But that's only really context: the reason for the move is that the article Nahiyah—to where Nahiyeh redirects as you suggested—describes "a regional or local type of administrative division"; and the disambiguation page Nahiyeh (disambiguation) lists places called "Nahiyeh". They are different subjects: a nahiyeh, and places called Nahiyeh. Shhhnotsoloud (talk) 09:48, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

  Thank you. I know all that, but I've already pointed out that English transliteration varies (and, as you well know, vowels are largely missing from all the regional abjads, and their pronunciation also tends to be indistinct and variable, so -eh and -ah in transliterations are just insignificant interpretations), and in Persian the word is borrowed, with the exact same meaning, from Arabic (see the Wiktionary entries for ناحية and ناحية). The fact that Iran has a few settlements called that way would only stand as an argument if you could prove that they mean something else there, which I'm sure they don't. In every language you have the vernacular expression "I'm going to X", where X stands for the seat of local or national administration (cf. High Porte), which replaces the actual name of the seat of power, town, or city. In Palestine you have several places called 'kursi', lit. 'throne', because they were the seat of power of local tribal leaders: a list of such places belongs of course on the same page as the general term; most if not all such places also had a proper name, but at least one is now only known as Kursi, Sea of Galilee. The same goes with many other frequently used terms, such as ed-deir (the monastery), er-rabad (the faubourg), el-karak, el-husn and el-qal'a (the fortress/castle), used locally w/o further specification, because for locals they could only refer to one place only. So no, I don't see any of the two arguments as standing up to scrutiny. Arminden (talk) 10:27, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

  I am happy to concede that it is puzzling how small the 3 Iranian villages are, and that one is also known as Nahish. If there is a valid argument, I would be looking there for it. With caution, as in a sparsely inhabited areas, any village can be a lower-rank seat of the administration, even a temporary one (annual tax collection, itinerant judge etc.). Alternatively, the 3 might have suffered loss of population and significance.

  Nahish contaminated by the term nahiyeh or the other way 'round would be an interesting case, but also related to nahiyeh.

  Altogether, maybe worth a thought, but not a separate page. Arminden (talk) 10:36, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

  ? Arminden (talk) 16:02, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

  Hi Zero0000, it's about geography and the Middle East+, maybe you're interested. Arminden (talk) 16:03, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

People should be able to find either target by starting with either spelling. Second, even if there is a common etymology (which seems conjectural) the difference between a general district type and a specific village name suggests not covering both on the same page. The general district type seems to be the primary topic. So I propose (1) an article "Nahiyeh" about the district type, with a dab message at the top like "For the Iranian villages, see this one or this one or this one." (2) a redirect "Nahiyah" that points to "Nahiyeh". Then everyone can get what they want in at most two clicks. If that's ok, let me know if implementing it needs admin powers. Zero^talk 00:51, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

Hi Zero0000. That would indeed be the solution if it weren't the SAME WORD, see here: "Persian - Etymology - Borrowed from Arabic نَاحِيَة (nāḥiya)". Same word. Not two. I think you missed that, I should have pointed it out when I invited you at this advanced phase. Turkish now uses the Latin alphabet, the ex-Soviet -stans Cyrillic, some stretch a vowel more than others... That doesn't change anything. Or else, the current main article would have to shed the Turkic places too and only keep those from Arab countries, which would be as nonsrnsical as splitting away the Iranian examples. Next would be to split Arabic by regional pronunciation, which varies hugely. Again: same word, same meaning. Arminden (talk) 09:18, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

I didn't miss anything. Nobody would think of combining Rose and Rose, Oklahoma even if it was proved that the name of the city was derived from the flower. They are articles about different concepts. A region is not the same as a village, and the Turkic examples are regions so they belong in the article about the region concept. Besides that, I don't accept your etymology. You can't determine the origin of a Persian village name from the meaning of the same word in modern Persian. Rose, Oklahoma might have been named after a person, the color of the surrounding hills in the Fall, or a poem about the sunrise, as far as you can tell just from looking at the word. I looked at one of the villages in the Persian wiki and it said that the people who live there don't know where the name came from (or else my machine translator was on drugs). Zero^talk 09:55, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

You say "I don't accept your etymology"; it's not mine, it's Wiktionary's!

Rose means several things in English. Nahiyeh does not, really. Check out the original Arabic: it only goes from

• side, direction, apparently derived from min nāḥiyatin ― on the other hand, to
• region, area and
• local administrative division.

So all are closely related in their meaning. Not like the wide range between colour, flower, and surname (rose). Also, three small villages in Iran are hardly a real "extra case" deserving an extra page, rather than being at best a tiny variation of the main meaning.

If you accept this, fine. If not, as second best option, we can implement the other option, with 2 closely interlinked pages, putting Wiktionary links back in and adding "see also"s and DAB tags. BUT, which is always an argument against DAB pages, pedantic colleagues regularly eliminate all these additiins from DAB pages, because they contradict some template or formal standard. Which leads to either less informative pages, or at least to more clicks for the user, which I'm sure many will give up on doing. I.e.: a less informative, less user-friendly end result. The worst of sins.

But I do very much appreciate you bringing arguments, which allows me to formulate counterarguments: a debate, which until now was missing. Arminden (talk) 10:25, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

Not a real DAB page

This is not a proper disambiguation page in the meaning of: disambiguation between words with different meanings; it's a DAB only as far as it lists and thus distinguishes between 3 Iranian village names transliterated as Nahiyeh by a US gov't website and taken over as such by enWiki in a centralised effort of flooding it with thousands of Iranian toponyms of mostly doubtful notability. So:

• notability is questionable to start with
• transliteration is not set in stone
• 2 out of the 3 have alternative and very similar names, one as primary, the other as secondary name.

Did anyone go back lately and check on why we're dealing with all these Iranian hamlets on enWiki? Arminden (talk) 15:25, 15 December 2024 (UTC)