Category talk:Lidové domy (Czechia)

To the rename proposal

@Apalsola: There are several specific terms for people's association houses in Czechia. The most often are "národní dům", "lidový dům", "dělnický dům", "hornický dům", "sokolovna", "orlovna", "katolický dům", "besední dům" (or "česká beseda", "měšťanská beseda") etc. Some of the names are associated with specific parties or assocations or functions. Attempting to translate some of these terms will result in a loss of clarity. E.g. the Czech terms "národ" and "lid" can be translated as "nation" and "people", but the distinction is not the same as in English, and "dělnický dům" in this context don't fall under Workers' houses (the literal translation to English would be confusing) but it's a third name for the association houses of labour movements organizations. To use the terms in original language (Category:Lidové domy (Czechia) nad Category:Dělnické domy (Czechia)) is the best way to keep the distinction and identity of such buildings, even though National houses in Czechia and Sokol houses in the Czech Republic have their categories with translated names. --ŠJů (talk) 01:09, 23 October 2022 (UTC)

As regards the distinction between "Czechia" and "Czech Republic", almost all such buildings comes from turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, i.e. from the times when Czechia (Czech lands) was not a separate republic, but part of the Habsburg Monarchy or (a bit later) a part of the Czechoslovak Republic. In this case, therefore, the timeless geographical name of the country is certainly more appropriate than the name of the recent political unit, which was created in 1969 and became independent in 1993. In general, for other countries where possible, we also prefer non-political geographical names of the countries to the full political names of the current state units. --ŠJů (talk) 01:20, 23 October 2022 (UTC)

@ŠJů: It is probably quite usual that some local term cannot be directly translated into English (or any other language). Still, according to the Universality principle, "local dialects and terminology should be supressed in favour of universality if possible". It is also stated both in the Language policy and in the Category policy that the category names should be in English. There is absolutely no reason for this category to be an exception, and the current name violates both of the policies. In case more distinct categorization is required, it can be done under Category:People's Houses in the Czech Republic (or Category:People's Houses in the Czechia). ––Apalsola ^{t • c} 16:20, 28 December 2022 (UTC)

@Apalsola: In theory, it would also be possible to translate many proper nouns of persons, streets, states, municipalities, etc. But it is not right and it is not appropriate. It is also possible to translate proper nouns (Einstein as Onestone, Belarus as White Russia, Železný Brod as Iron Ford, or Oblouková street as Curved street), but for good reasons we do not translate them that way. Only those names that exist in English as accepted and established exonyms are used in English. As for common nouns, it depends on whether they are purely descriptive, or specific designations that have the function of a proper noun in part (English sometimes treats such types of common nouns as proper nouns, as you indicate in your proposal with capital letters, although in other languages they are understood as specific common nouns). The question is whether such a name reliably retains its definiteness when translated into English and back into the original language. As for a designation that cannot be arbitrarily replaced by a synonym, such a designation should not even be translated into English - except as an explanation, but not for identification. In this case, the translation into English is not able to reliably express, for example, the difference between the designations "národní dům" and "lidový dům" – the English word "people" has both these meanings, "národ" as well as "lid". You completely ignore this argument. If you have ignored all the stated reasons for giving the original term and summarized them falsely with "there is absolutely no reason", then you have not yet become a relevant participant in this discussion. You also completely ignored the argument regarding the confusing translation of "dělnický dům" as "workers' house".

Above all, it is necessary to remind that the rule "category names should be in English" does not apply fully to proper names (and you yourself capitalize this expression as a proper name in your proposal). So, from the sentence you quoted, it is necessary to emphasize the connection "if possible". This must be understood "if possible so that the category name fulfills its function". See the older and more precise rules Commons:Naming categories#Language: "For some themes, there exists no identical or usable English term" see examples there). Unfortunately, Commons:Categories did not better define such cases, but on the contrary completely omitted them. However, it can be deduced by common sense that trying to translate into English is not appropriate where either the term cannot be translated at all, or the translation would not be comprehensible, or the translation would not be definite and unambiguous. If you want to validly participate in the discussion, then you must begin to consider whether the case under discussion falls among such cases. I have already explicitly explained and documented why translations into English are unusable (problematic) for "lidový dům" and "dělnický dům". You didn't respond to those arguments at all. If such a translation into English were not problematic, then of course it would be possible to use it. Btw., the term "House of People" was also a name of the lower chamber of the Czechoslovak federative parliament ("Sněmovna lidu"), although a literal translation could also be "lidový dům". (A grammar remark to the your proposals: "the Czech Republic" i used with the "the" article, while "Czechia" is a standard country name used without the "the" article, similarly as "the Finnish Republic" vs. "Finland". The full political names are sometimes used without "the", but the short names Czechia or Finland are never used with "the".) --ŠJů (talk) 19:59, 28 December 2022 (UTC)

@ŠJů: I only capitalized the expression because (for some reason I do not know) Category:People's Houses and its subcategories are capitalized, too, and I wanted to preserve consistency. I do think that the category should be Category:People's houses but that is a matter of separate and broader discussion. However, please do not make any assumptions of my motives.

I did not ignore your argument. I just think the difference between the designations is relevant and unique enough to make an exception to the policy. This is not the only case when translating a local term to another language may be problematic to some extent. If we always made an exception, the whole category structure would be very difficult to follow which in turn would make the files far more difficult to find. (And making the files easier to find is the whole purpose of categorization.) I hope some day category names would be translated with the help of Wikidata but we are not there yet, so having the category names (of common nouns) in English is the best tradeoff.

About who is "a relevant participant in this discussion": you have moved the category to its current name[1][2] without using the {{Move}} template or having any discussion at all which is clearly in contrary to the instructions about category renames. So having done that, you are not really in a position to tell who is a relevant part of this discussion. If we did this right, we would immediately revert your move (i.e. rename the category back to Category:People's Houses in the Czech Republic) and only after that have a discussion if the category should be moved to Category:Lidové domy (Czechia).

"Czechia" is without an article, of course. That was a copy-paste error in my previous comment. ––Apalsola ^{t • c} 15:52, 31 December 2022 (UTC)

I explained why some proper nouns should be not translated from the original language and why just the Czech terms "lidový dům", "národní dům" and "dělnický dům" are problematic to be translated, because the translation would be ambiguous. Of course, I considered translation options, but I did not use them precisely because they are not suitable. If in some other country similar terms translated into English are unambiguous, then for such countries there is no reason not to use the English translation. In the case of the Czech context, it is necessary to consider whether the English phrase "People's house" (or something similar) safely distinguish "národní dům" and "lidový dům". And "workers' house" makes it difficult to distinguish the seat of a workers' association from a workers' dwelling.

Czechia has its article, even though this short name is not used in its title. Generally, "Czech Republic" is unusable for purely historical topics from the time when Czechia did not yet have its own republic, but was a kingdom or a part of the unitary Czechoslovakia, a republic of two countries and two nations. Topics such as "people's house" or "national house" relate mainly to the end of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, when Bohemia was a kingdom, however here in the Commons, they are mostly represented by modern photographs of those buildings, so naming them using the name of the republic is acceptable. But it is ridiculously anachronistic in relation to historical personalities and events.--ŠJů (talk) 20:45, 31 December 2022 (UTC)