Talk:Voivodeship

Polish Voivodships

I started Wikipedia:WikiProject Polish Voivodships some time ago to settle the naming conventions for Polish Voivodships, powiats/counties and gmina/communes. Please participate. [[User:Halibutt|Halibutt]] 13:12, Sep 21, 2004 (UTC)

Can anybody translate the map into English please? --Akkolon 14:22, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)

doesn't Russia have "oblast'"(district) or "raion"(region) instead of voivodships? they've never had Voivods

Yes, see oblast and raion. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 22:25, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Voivodship should by replaced with PROVINCE

Since this word is much more reasonable in translation. Voivodship was created for the needs of Poland joining European Union structures and was widespread onto various documents afterwards used. But this term is obsolate and it's use is simply - improper. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Brick G (talk • contribs) 09:24, June 3, 2006

The article is not only about Voivodships of Poland. It is about Voivodship as a specific type of province which existed in several countries, not only in Poland. PANONIAN (talk) 16:36, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

There is currently a debate about whether or not the word "Voivodship" (or Voivodeship) is appropriate for use in Wikipedia article titles about the Polish divisions. To participate in the debate and vote, please see WikiProject Geography of Poland. --Elonka 18:03, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Well no matter how such voting will end, that should not affect this article. This article is not about Polish voivodships, but about usage of the name "voivodship" in various languages or countries. Term "voivodship" is a common English translation of the Polish term "województwo", Serbian term "vojvodina", Romanian term "voievodat", etc. No matter if for example article about Lubusz Voivodship of Poland will be renamed to Lubusz Province, the Polish language still use term "województwo" for it, which is a good reason that we mention it in this article. PANONIAN (talk) 21:32, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

A question still remains as to whether the proper spelling is "voivodship" or "voivodeship". There are very few English dictionaries which have it at all, but those few that I've been able to find, such as OED, Webster's Third New International Dictionary (unabridged), and a Polish-English dictionary, list the primary spelling as "voivodeship." What are the sources that list it as "voivodship", without the "e"? --Elonka 00:55, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

I do not know what are the sources which list it as "voivodship", it was not me that created this article anyway, but I could search for some sources. However, since both terms "voivodship" and "voivodeship" are used, I think that we should not change it. It is not that I am against any of these two terms, just it would be too big job to change "voivodship" to "voivodeship" in all articles where this term is mentioned. The usage of the term Voivod is also related to this. See this as example: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/voivod The wiktionary claim that "voivod" is a variant of "voivode", so if the "voivod" is used in English, then "voivodship" derived from it. But, as I said, problem is that all articles on Wikipedia related to the term are named "voivodship" and not "voivodeship", so I think that we should not change the usage of the term if that is not absolutely necessary. PANONIAN (talk) 01:14, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Then I would strongly recommend that you participate in the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Geography of Poland, as that is where the decision will probably be made. As for quantity of work involved, that's not really an issue, since there are wiki software utilities which allow for rapid multi-page changes. In any case, it may turn out that most of those Voivodship pages may get changed to Province or even have the word "Voivodship" taken entirely out of their title, depending on how the voting goes. --Elonka 01:45, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Which is a pretty good reason to take part in the vote and defend the use of voivod(e)ship. Dumbing it down to 'province' would be a significant damage to Wikipedia (just as eliminating oblast, Prefecture (China), Département or state would be).--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 02:13, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Piotrus, setting aside for the moment the question of whether or not "dumbing it down" is a violation of WP:NPA, can you please try to explain, in a calm, good faith manner, in no more than two reasonably-sized paragraphs, why you believe that "province" is not a proper term to use in this case? --Elonka 15:44, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

I didn't mean 'dumbing down' as an attack on you, but I believe it would be one of the consequnces. "Province" is not correct here as 1) it may be confused with a false friend, prowincja (especially in the time of PLC, less in moder era). 2) as many books and other sources use voivodship it is a term used in English language. That it is not well known is not an issue, most of articles in Wiki are not well known. 3) Changing voivodeship for province would be confusing, as many wiki readers and editors are familiar with the current term 4) 99% work on this subject has been done by Polish wikipedians, any change here would be twice as confusing the the only content creators interested in this subject 5) any change would require renaming of hundreds of articles and change in text of thousands - until you know who can do it, any renaming should not be carried out 6) any change here should also apply to other similar terms, I see no reason to have 'oblasts' or 'prefectures' on Wiki if we cannot have voivodship.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 18:40, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

In addition to what Piotrus wrote above, there's always a question of what term should we adopt. Province? Region? Area? Administrative unit? Also, there is the problem of what terms should be replaced. If the Polish voivodeships are to be replaced with provinces, what would you rename English counties or American states to (not to mention prefectures, actual Polish provinces, oblasts, governorates, and so on, and so forth)? //Halibutt 18:49, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, reasons 3, 4, 5, and 6 have very little weight with me. The point of Wikipedia, as I see it, isn't to make things easy or convenient for the Polish Wikipedians, but to make articles which are clear and understandable to the majority of English speakers. As has been decided in many other discussions about Wikipedia, common usage is preferable to precise usage (for example, an article on dogs uses the common term, not the Latin). As for quantity of changes, I see that as a manufactured problem. I'm particularly concerned that translation efforts are proceeding on Polish geographic terms, even though it's clear that there's not consensus for their translation, and though I appreciate the work that's going in to the translations, I would be more comfortable if efforts were directed towards some other less controversial subject while we're debating these issues. Reason #2 is probably the one that has the most weight with me, in terms of "books and sources", so let's explore that one. Can you point me at English-language encyclopedias that use the word "voivodeship"? --Elonka 19:37, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree that reasons 3 to 6 by themselves are not major. As for reason 2, your counterargument is not valid: Wikipedia is now the largest encyclopedia on Earth, so it is rather obvious that it may have articles on subjects not known by other encyclopedias. Surely you are not suggesting that if something is not in a non-Wiki encyclopedia we should not talk about it? Please note for example this article in Britannica (full access). Note that it uses the term 'voivodeship' and then explains only in parenthesis that it means province (and in the same format gives the Polish spelling of województwo). This would suggest that Britannica prefers the term voivodship, wouldn't it? Still the most important argument I have is nr 1. How would you address it?--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 21:39, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, you lost me at "your counterargument is not valid", because we lost the illusion of good faith. Care to try again, with a more neutral, consensus-building tone? I do like that you came up with an article in Britannica though. That carries a lot of weight with me, even if I can find six other sources that use different terms. If you can find a different encyclopedia that also uses the term "voivodship", that's probably your most influential argument at this point, at least with me. --Elonka 22:44, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

As I said, it is not only about Polish voivodships. What about historical voivodships in Serbia and Romania? For example, the Serbian Voivodship that is in an English source I have (The Times History of Europe, London, 2001) called "Serbian Voivodina". It would be ridiculous to change name of this article to "Serbian Province". Regarding the question whether articles about Polish voivodships should be renamed to have word "province" instead of "voivodship" in their titles, I do not have time to participate in the discussion about that because I am interested only in this general article about voivodships. However, even if the articles about Polish voivodships are renamed in the future, we still should list them here under name "voivodships". Regarding the question what name we should use for this article, I saw that 3 names for this are used in English: "voivodship", "voivodeship" and "voivodina" (even "vojvodina" is also used). However, since most of the articles about voivodships now use word "voivodship", we should use it here too. If the most of these articles are renamed in the future, then we can discuss whether to still use name "voivodship" for this article or to rename it to "voivodeship" PANONIAN (talk) 21:10, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

(followup) Per consensus at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject Geography of Poland, it has been decided that it is the word Voivodeship which should be used. --Elonka 00:16, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Consensus deterimined by this vote.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 15:33, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes, but that voting was about Polish-related articles, while this "voivodship" article extend beyond that definition. It is only partially Polish-related. New vote should be here about name of this article. PANONIAN (talk) 16:08, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

I understand that this article is not just about Poland. However, even though the word "voivodeship" (or however it is spelled) may be found in the dictionary, nobody uses the word with reference to Poland, at least not with reference to contemporary Poland. It is possible that historians or geographers use the term, but I cannot imagine something having to do with contemporary life, for example a hospital, having this English translation in its name.

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the debate was No Consensus. Sorry to do this but there is clearly a deadlock here and it's been ongoing for weeks now. I've no idea why this doesn't match the project poll but I'm going to focus on this one. I even quickly checked voters' experience to root out newbies but nothing doing - there are experienced editors on both sides of this poll. —Wknight94 (talk) 17:27, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Requested move

An extensive discussion, as cited above, has been ongoing about the word "Voivodeship" [1]. The consensus is clear that the preferred spelling is "Voivodeship", since that is the spelling recommended in the Oxford English Dictionary. A project is ongoing to update many article titles, stubs, and categories to reflect the consensus spelling, and this article is included. As such, it should be moved to Voivodeship, per consensus. If anyone has opinions, please discuss them below. --Elonka 15:05, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, but I repeat: this IS NOT article about voivodships/voivodeships of Poland, but about general term Voivodship that was used in several countries. If you say that somebody reached a "consensus" to rename Polish-related articles from "voivodship" to "voivodeship" that does not mean that this "consensus" should apply to this article as well. I really see no point to change name of this article. Three names are used in English for the subject: "voivodship", "voivodeship" and "voivodina". Most Wikipedia articles already use term "voivodship", and I see no reason why we should not use it. Where is proof that "voivodeship" is more common in English than "voivodship"? Reference in one dictionary does not mean much. If this ridiculous crusade against term "voivodship" continue, perhaps I should consider to use term "voivodina" for Serbia-related articles (since there is already chaos in this usage of terms). So, please do not speak about "consensus" in a discussion where I did not participated at all, but try to prove here why we should not use term "voivodship" for this article? PANONIAN (talk) 15:29, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

I think we have a consensus to use voivodeship in Poland-related articles. As PANONIAN notes, this term is used also beyong Poland-related topics, and I believe few non-Polish editors were involved in discussions at Poland Geography WikiProject, so indeed we should discuss the name change here before applying it to non-Poland related articles.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 16:28, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree that there should be sensitivity to the spellings as preferred by other nationalities. As for participation in the discussion, there have been multiple mentions here at Talk:Voivodship that a renaming discussion was going on, so it can't really be claimed that this was a total surprise. However, I'm fine on rediscussing the issue of this particular page. My main reason to support the spelling of "Voivodeship", is because that's the primary spelling in English dictionaries, as can be easily verified in any library that has the OED, and that this applies not just to the Polish administrative unit, but also to other nationalities as well. If there are outside sources (Serbian/English dictionaries, perhaps) that use the spelling of 'voivodship instead, then the Serbian articles on Wikipedia should by all means stick to that spelling. Can sources be provided? --Elonka 17:26, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Voting

• Note: at least two articles that contained the word "voivodship" were recently renamed "voivodeship" through Wikipedia:Requested moves. I completed those moves, but unfortunately I was unaware that this page had a requested move as well. There is not a majority at this time, but I think having articles with various versions is undesirable. I suggest that editors vote for a version to use in all articles. I have made an area for editors to vote on whether they want all of the articles' names to be decided by this poll. I'll move this article's entry on requested moves to the top so that it can get more participation. I suggest that the poll be closed on 8/10/06. The long length is to give plenty of time for people to participate since so many articles will be affected (perhaps 40 to 100, according to WikiWax, it's hard to tell since redirects show up). Participants, please do not recruit voters to vote for your side. However, you can place neutral notices at places that are likely to be frequented by both sides, like the Village Pump. Placing a notice on pages that will be affected by the outcome would also be appropriate. Since there are so many, you might want to stick to the most well known ones. -- Kjkolb 09:43, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

As far as Poland-related articles, this has already been covered in such locations as Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject Geography of Poland, and CFR, and Wikipedia_talk:Naming conventions (places). The main unresolved issue at this point, is just the naming of this "Voivodship" article, since it involves the opinions of multiple nations' regions, not just Polish. As such, I agree it deserves a separate discussion. But the others are pretty well already resolved. I've left a more detailed explanation on your talk page. --Elonka 16:59, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

The article should keep name "Voivodship"

1. PANONIAN (talk) 16:14, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
2. While not generally applicable, Google test seems quite fair here: it yields 2.5:1 to this form. Dictionaries can't dictate usage, at least not in English language. Duja 14:39, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
   • The OED does not dictate usage, it describes usage; and I would trust their judgment above Google's any day. The Google results cited appear to be largely the efforts of official Polish websites to guess at the English form. Septentrionalis 15:00, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
     • Google doesn't have judgment. Its report about usage is clearly more up-to-date than OED's one: how did it come that OED didn't record a word occuring at 560,000 web pages? And M-W and (my older) AHD don't have it at all. Since the latter two don't mention it, would you concur that it doesn't exist? Most of the 230,000 for "voivodeship" come from Polish sites too. You're judging too much just because OED recorded one form, and other dictionaries didn't record any. Duja 06:30, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
3. No need to change it in the first place. If we have to chose some option, why not the one twice as popular as the other? //Halibutt 14:59, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
   • Halibutt, I'm confused. Weren't you one of the people at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject Geography of Poland who voted for the spelling of "Voivodeship"? --Elonka 16:36, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
     • That was a different case as we were voting for names of specific entities. //Halibutt
4. I've been using Google Books and Google Scholar to test most name options lately, and Voivodship is clearly the more prevalent. Up with descriptivism. heqs 07:07, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

The article should change name into "Voivodeship"

1. This is the spelling in the Oxford English Dictionary. --Elonka 17:20, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
2. Concur; the OED recognizes woiwodship as a by-form, but the present name is unknown (and unnatural, as a formation from voivode. Septentrionalis 02:37, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
3. Agree with Elonka and Septentrionalis. Olessi 17:25, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
4. I trust Oxford English Dictionary in this case. Encyclopaedia Editing Dude 11:47, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
5. Per Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject Geography of Poland consensus, why isn't the voting in line with that? --Dhartung | Talk 11:44, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

This poll should determine the spelling for all articles

• Support; the same issue, the actual English usage. Septentrionalis 00:50, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
• Weak Support; I'd say it should serve as a guidance. Encyclopaedia Editing Dude 11:51, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

This poll should not determine the spelling for all articles

• STRONG SUPPORT ...for reasons already explained. If this crusade against alternative names continue, do not think that I will not start a poll in every single article that is affected by this. PANONIAN (talk) 01:10, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
• Comment I think that there are separate issues for different countries' articles. As far as Polish voivodeships go, the issue was debated at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject Geography of Poland, and the clear consensus was to use the spelling of "Voivodeship" for Polish entities. As for other countries (such as Serbian), I agree that it might be appropriate to use a different spelling, and that that is worth debating separately. --Elonka 03:26, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Spelling in external references

This is a collection of English-language reference works, and which variation of the word that they use. If you have access to other works than are listed here, please feel free to add to the list. --Elonka 00:50, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Dictionaries

• Voivodeship, Oxford English Dictionary
• Voivodeship, Webster's Third New International Dictionary

Encyclopedias

• Voivodeship, Encyclopedia of Ukraine [2] [3]
• Voivodship, Encyclopedia Britannica [4]

Other

• Voivodeship, Opole Voivodeship website [5]
• 560.000 Voivodship versus 235,000 Voivodeship GHits, most of them Polish.

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

All right...

I even will not ask whose sockpuppet changed name of the article. I will give up this one, but I will not agree about imposing this new name into every single article on Wikipedia. It was proven (even on this page) that both these names are used in English, thus we can use both of them in Wikipedia articles. PANONIAN (talk) 23:59, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

It seems that User:NewYorkMan2210 did several unrelated moves from WP:RM as he saw fit. He was warned and his moves reverted. Duja 13:45, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Common usage

Panonian, hi, thanks for the changes. I also saw that you were requesting a citation for the "common usage" sentence. I added that, because I could not find any version of spelling of "voivodeship" in the Scrabble dictionary, nor in the New York Times Crossword Puzzle dictionary. In my mind, if a word isn't allowable in Scrabble, then it's not considered a "common" word. :) Also, though the word is in the Webster's and Oxford dictionaries, it's not in any others that I've checked. --Elonka 00:13, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Vayvodeship

In 19th century Polish "województwo" was written in English also as "Vayvodeship" [6]. rozek19 11:47, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Oh no. Please do not start new voting about name change. :) PANONIAN (talk) 03:00, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Serbian Vojvodina

I wonder why is Serbian Vojvodina listed under modern voivodeships. There is no reason to do that, because it's a proper name of a region, not a name of a voievodeship. It's not a "voivodeship of Serbian Vojvodina". I realize that the Serbian name is derived from the common source, but in my opinion mentioning it in the first part of the article for reference is enough. What I mean is that you wouldn't list a hypothetical town of High Mountain in the list of mountains, would you? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Llewelyn MT (talk • contribs) 08:47, 11 May 2008 (UTC) I support.Xx236 (talk) 09:24, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

"Voivodeship" and "Province"

The Polish term "województwo" really should be rendered on the English Wikipedia as "province." That is the most common English rendering for the major administrative divisions of most countries.

The only semi-rational justification that has been given for using the barbarism "voivodeship" or "voivodship" (there is not even consensus on how to spell the word) instead of "province" is that, until the completion of the partitions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1795, the cognate Polish "prowincyja" (as it was then spelled) was idiosyncratically used to designate several still greater divisions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth—Greater Poland, Lesser Poland, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Royal Prussia.

That is hardly a good reason to saddle a modern country with an "English" term as odd as "voivodeship," in preference over "province." A disambiguation is secured easily enough by rendering the 18th-century "prowincyja" into English as "Region." Thus "województwo" is "province" ("Lublin Province"), and "prowincyja" is "Region" ("Greater Poland Region")

The Polish "prowincyja" and the English "province" are what, in translation theory, are known as "false friends." The former, Polish expression should not be rendered into English as "province" but as "region." Nihil novi (talk) 09:27, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Hardly false friends - these "prowincje" were the major administrative divisions of the country, so the very things you say ought to be called provinces. "Regions" would imply some vague geographical areas. Anyway, Voivod(e)ship is a commonly used translation of województwo in the outside world, so I don't see anything wrong with using it here.--Kotniski (talk) 11:57, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

I beg to differ. The Wikipedia "prowincja" article specifically states:

"A prowincja (Region), though larger than a province (województwo), was less important in terms of offices and power. In most respects, a prowincja was merely a titular unit of administration; the real power lay with the provinces (województwa)—and, to a lesser extent, with ziemias." Nihil novi (talk) 19:01, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

That was probably written by an editor trying to make the point that you're making, so not a brilliant source to rely on. I suspect that real historians would call a prowincja a province, though I'm willing to be proved wrong (we know województwa were called voivodeships at least often enough for the word to make the OED).--Kotniski (talk) 19:33, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

I think that an analogy for most of the Polish(-Lithuanian) "prowincje," such as "Greater Poland," might be the American geographical term "New England," which is a region but not a state, province or other actual administrative unit.

The English "voivod(e)ship" was a neologism created in the 18th century by individuals who did not know what to make of "województwo," especially given the idiosyncratic Polish use of the word "prowincja."

More importantly, given that the word "prowincja" has had no native political use in Poland since 1795, what prevents calling a Polish "województwo" a "province"—as would be done in respect to most any other country in the present-day world? Nihil novi (talk) 20:16, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Well, not necessarily - Japan has prefectures, Russia has oblasts, Belarus has voblasts and so on. We tend to follow real-world usage, but with the bias of an encyclopedian towards being correct and accurate. With Poland, there's enough real-world usage to support both voivod(e)ship and province, but since the former is potentially more accurate (people who know the subject will always know unambiguously what's meant, regardless of the historical period(s) in question), we go with that. And although the spelling without the "e" is more common, we go with the "e" because that's what dictionaries say is good English. At least, that's how I see it - I wasn't around when these decisions were originally made. I would still use province or some such if the context didn't make it clear that a province-like thing is being referred to, though.--Kotniski (talk) 20:45, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Well, perhaps Japan, Russia and Belarus will eventually support a change in the English rendering of their province entities and join those countries that translate them as "provinces." Nihil novi (talk) 22:32, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Oh, according to the table in the "Province" article, Belarus already does render its entities into English as "provinces." Nihil novi (talk) 22:38, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

And "Region" does not necessarily "imply some vague geographical areas." Witness Belgium's Flemish Region and Walloon Region. Nihil novi (talk) 23:36, 21 November 2009 (UTC)