Category talk:Wheat in heraldry

Should this category maybe be changed to ionclude barley and rye as well? /Lokal_Profil 13:38, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

They are much more scarce in heraldry than wheat. Therefore I think it should be better to create independant categories (if there are coat of arms on commons that bear barley or rye) Zigeuner 00:40, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Created Category:Barley in heraldry for barley. I'll leave the rye category uncreated until I come across suc a CoA. /Lokal_Profil 10:13, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Category:Wheat ears in heraldry and Category:Wheat garbs in heraldry

(copied here from User talk:AtonX)

Hi, I didn't understand why you moved away Image:Meuble blé tigé feuillé.svg Image:Héraldique meuble Gerbe de blé.svg from these catagories. They are said to be ear and garb of wheat, not of any grain; that's why they don't seem to have to be in a more general category.
The category Category:Wheat ears in heraldry seemed to me necessary, because since the category Category:Ears in heraldry have been created, it was some kind of duplicate of Category:Wheat in heraldry. I think Category:Wheat ears in heraldry is clearer; the more general Category:Ears in heraldry would so contain only ears of another grain (or of undeterminate grain; even if these "undeterminated" grain is often obviously wheat).
And I thought it was clearer to do the same for garbs, so that in Category:Wheat in heraldry would appear the two kinds of heraldic figures with wheat : ears and garbs.
What do you think about that ? Sincerely Zigeuner 10:20, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

• Hi. There are several things to consider:
  1. Many blasons just mention "garb" or "ear", and it is up to the artist to draw just some garb or ear. The result may be a depiction of either wheat (blé), rye (seigle) or barley (orge), according to the selection by the artist. Thus, the same coat of arms, just emblazoned by different artists, might end up in different subcategories at the same time. That is just not to be desired. For these coats of arms, specifying “wheat”, “rye” or “barley” means adding new information, which has no source in the blason.
  2. There are heraldic elements (meubles héraldiques) available here on Commons, which just are reused out of convenience. That means, many coats of arms will just get a garb of wheat or ear of wheat, just because it is readily available. Thus, most newly constructed SVG coats of arms will tend to end up in a single subcategory, anyway.
  So a more general category Category:Ears in heraldry or Category:Garbs in heraldry will prevent us from introducing user-made errors or biases and also prevents overfragmenting the category system. --AtonX 09:29, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

P.S.: Already now, the category Category:Wheat in heraldry erroneously contains images of Coats of Arms, which have nothing to do with wheat whatsoever, either by blason or by graphic representation! That will have to be fixed... --AtonX 14:18, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Hi. All that is true. I'm OK that coat of arms whose blazons just mention "ear" should be categorized in "Ears in heraldry". But this category should contain sub-categories for the coat of arms whose blazon mentions "ear of wheat" (or rye, or barley). Don't you find it is not logical that all coat of arms showing ears are not in the category "Ears in heraldry" (because some are in "Wheat in heraldry" or "Barley in heraldry") ?

I really don't understand why there should not be more accurate categories, since most of the blazons mention that ears (or garbs) are of wheat/rye/barley (note that in French, when "gerbe" [=garb] is used alone, it always means "garb of wheat").

Zigeuner 23:34, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

(End of moved section)

As a side comment, ear might not be the best choice of category name since most people will think animal/human ear rather then ear of wheat/rye/barley. If we are wanting to group them all together then why not cereal or something instead. Also please don't move the images around and create new cats until the issue has been resolved./Lokal_Profil 01:32, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Another very important point also is, that if a french blason mentions blé (literally wheat), actually it's not botanical wheat (Triticum sp.) which is meant, but generally grain/corn. To quote w:fr:Blé:

“En français, le terme « blé » a aussi servi à désigner la céréale la plus importante, quelle que soit son espèce, à la manière du mot corn en anglais ou de grano en italien. C'est ainsi qu'il s'est appliqué un peu abusivement à des espèces voisines dans leur utilisation, notamment l'orge (Hordeum) et le seigle (Secale),... ”—In french, the term ‘blé’ also served to describe the most important cereal, whatever its species, similarly to the word ‘corn’ in English or ‘grano’ in Italian. It has been thus applied somehow improperly for related species which were used, notably barley (Hordeum) and rye (Secale),...

If we mechanically translated (and subcategorised) this as wheat, we would bona fide again introduce an user-error by adding information, which is not contained in the original source. --AtonX 09:53, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

• Well, what is wrotten in French-speaking wikipedia is true, but is incomplete and cannot be used to conclude that blé means "any grain" in French. Using "blé" for other grain than wheat was only local (for example, in the dialect which was spoken in my region, "bié" - a term having the same origin as "blé"- meaned rye) and is now archaic. Moreover, when other plants were called "blé", they weren't often called only "blé" : the best example is the buckwheat called "blé noir" (litteraly black wheat). You can trust me; I'm French, I did biological studies, I come from region where agriculture is important : in French, "blé" always means plant of Triticum genus.
• I do agree with the idea of renaming "Ears in heraldry" as "Cereals in heraldry", with sub-categories "Barley in ...", "Wheat in ...", etc. At least the category "Wheat in ..." should be divided in two sub-categories "Wheat ears in ..." and "Wheat garbs in ...", as these are the two kinds of wheat that appear in heraldry. All coat of arms whose blazon doesn't mention the species of the cereal should be categorized in "Cereals in heraldry".

Zigeuner 14:30, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Sounds good. Category:Cereals in heraldry being the only category directly in Category:Plants in heraldry with garbs, wheat, rye and barley subcategories (=any other cereal which might appear later). And with wheat ears/garbs as subcategories to wheat (and garbs). /Lokal_Profil 10:59, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

OK. Do we wait on AtonX's agreement before renaming these categories ? Zigeuner 14:46, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Probably best =) /Lokal_Profil 17:17, 13 November 2007 (UTC)