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Name of the battle

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When a name has been transcribed from a Western language to Russian, one cannot transcribe once more to obtain the name in the Latin alphabet. Transcription is not a one-to-one mapping, and therefore the name will often be almost unrecognizable after such a process. This has happened in this case. The original Swedish name Hangöudd was first transcribed to Russian Гангут. So far, everything is OK. To transcribe this once more to Gangut is wrong. Gangut is not a name to be found on any Western map. The correct thing to do is of course to use the name from which the Russian transcription was originally formed. Hence, the name of the battle should be "Battle of Hangöudd" or "Battle of Hankoniemi". The choice depends on which form is most appropriate, the historic Swedish form or the modern Finnish form of the name. The place lies in a region in which the majority language traditionally has been Swedish. This is still the case in the community where the battle took place, but in Hanko (Hangö) the majority language has been Finnish since ab. 1900. This page should be moved to a new page with one of the names suggested above. Aavat (talk) 19:52, 17 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In principle I agree with you, but only when speaking about geographic names. In fact I have created the redirect double transliteration to describe what you call "transcribing once more". This article is however about a battle. So, what you are doing is original research and creating a neologism. All reliable sources refer to this battle as the Battle of Gangut. Google finds about 872 references for "Battle of Gangut" and 72 more in Books. On the other hand Google only finds one reference when searching for "Battle of Hangöudd".
I am reversing your edits and move. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 00:55, 1 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It is interesting to notice that you just undo changes without discussing them first. I argued for this change 2 weeks before I made the change. I only got one comment, and it was positive. It is true that the majority uses Gangut instead of the original name Hangöudd. But you cannot measure correctness by the majority. Especially not in an electronic encyclopedia where redirects come automatically. I disagree with your decision and would like to undo your change, but I am polite enough to wait for your defence arguments. May be that Hangöudd is a neologism. But Gangut is a mistake, introduced by people who did not understand that Гангут was a transcription (not a transliteration) of Hangöudd. And I think it is worse to use a mistake than using a neologism. The situation is even worse in the case of Grengam. There one has to look at old maps to understand that Гренгам is a transcription of Gränhamn. I see that through your undo, you have reintroduced the erroneous information that Grengam is a transcription of Granhamn (and it is far from being a transliteration which you claim). You have also reintroduced the information that the battle of Granhamn/Ledsund took place on July 27. And yes, the majority of sources uses this date, but that does not make it more correct. -- Aavat (talk) 20:37, 1 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Instead of answering all your points, I think I will just let my good friend User:Ghirlandajo help you figure this out. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 22:56, 1 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
So far, no one has taken your point of view in this matter. If you cannot argue for your reverts, I will correct them. -- Aavat (talk) 21:22, 3 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Er, I second Petri Krohn in this. We cannot use neologisms as the titles of articles. You are perfectly welcome to explain the problem(s) with the traditional name of the battle in the "lede" to the article, you can even have a redirected article title or redirected article titles provided you find 2-3 good sources for that one. In the case of the Northern War, all ledes should have the Russian and Swedish name, and the local name if the location was outside today's Sweden and Russia. That additional local name will usually be Finnish. Exceptions to be made for large-scale resettlement in the recent century: I am thinking of Karelia, where the Finnish name should be added, and East Prussia, where the pre-1933 German name should be added (very often this will be moot, because Swedish sources will use the German names for locations in East Prussia, and Russian sources may occasionally use traditional karelian or Finnish names). For war histories there will usually be little need to use more than three languages, except when a peace treaty was signed at a place with representatives of third or fourth countries prominently present at the conference. On the other hand, that sort of oeace treaty usully gets its own article, taking care of the language multitude. But the main article title should reflect what existing sources call it - however erroneous you may think they are. We are not in the business of cleaning up the scientific world. No original research, and no WP:SYNTH. The same thing applies to the dates, actually. I am personally convinced that Dimitri Kirsanoff was born on March 5th, 1899 in Riga, because the discrepancy between his death certificate (saying February 21) and the info he gave to everybody except the French authorities (March 6th in Dorpat) can only be explained by the difference in calendars and the assumption that he continued to celebrate his birthday according to the old Russian calendar. Unfortunately, I cannot find any credible source saying that, so I cannot put that in the article. If I did, it would be original research. --Paul Pieniezny (talk) 17:13, 8 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
1.) From the last editions made by Petri Krohn, I think he now agrees with me that both the battle of Hangö and the battle of Granhamn/Ledsund took place on July 27Jul./ August 7Greg.. Also, I think we both agree that the best thing to do is to give both dates. I always do that in my articles in other languages. The reason I raised this issue, was that he just removed my change without considering that the dates of the battles thereby became inconsistent (i.e., the dates referred to different calendars). 2.) These battles took place in regions where Swedish always has been the common language. In Åland, Swedish has always been the language of the population and it is still the only official language. In the area around Hanko (Hangö), Swedish has been the dominating language, but in the city Finnish is now spoken by the majority. At the time of the battle and in the next 150 years, Swedish was the language used by the population and the official language. Both names are therefore of Swedish origin. Granhamn was possibly not the original name. On Hans Hansson's map of Åland from about 1650 (see Inventering av fornlämningar och kulturmiljöer på Granhamnsholmen och Rödskär i Bråttö, Ålands landskapsregering, 2006), the anchorage is called Gränhamn. In Russian, this name was transcribed to Гренгам. If they had used Granhamn as source, the Russian transcription would have been Грангам. Note that this is not a transliteration. A transliteration of Gränhamn is Гренхамн. Later, the Russian Гренгам was transliterated back to Latin letters, and thus the "name" Grengam appeared. However, this is a misunderstanding, used by people who did not know better. If sources are needed for the use of Granhamn, simply look in the English edition of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia (third edition, volume 7, page 339). There, Granhamn is the only name used for this battle. Obviously. An editor of a reputed encyclopedia would not bring information based on mistakes to the readers. The same thing can be said about Hangöudd. This is the original Swedish name. In Russian, it was transcribed to Гангут. Again, this is not a transliteration, but a transcription. A transliteration of Hangöudd would be Хангёудд, but this is never used. Later, the Russian Гангут was transliterated back to Latin letters, and thus the "name" Gangut appeared. Again, this is a misunderstanding. In English (as in all Western languages), Gangut is not a name of a place in Finland, it is a Russian battleship (or class of battleships). Hangöudd has been used for the battle location for at least 150 years. For example, when the monument of this battle was raised in 1870, the newspapers Helsingfors Dagblad (15 Aug. 1870), Hufvudstadsbladet (16 Aug. 1870), and Folkwännen (24 Aug. 1870) called this battle the naval battle of Hangöudd (see Historical newspaper library). The Swedish text on the monument also uses this name. In the English edition of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia (third edition, volume 6, page 527), the battle name Hangö is used. This is also used in Encyclopædia Britannica (volume 8, 1998, page 791). Again, this is obvious. An editor of a reputed encyclopedia would not bring information based on mistakes to the readers. If the point here is to avoid neologisms, I would claim, based on the sources above, that Granhamn and Hangöudd (or Hangö) are the original names, and that Grengam and Gangut are artificial constructions which should not be used in an encyclopedia which wants to bring correct and well established facts to the readers. Note that my criticism is not against the Russian names. Гренгам and Гангут are perfectly acceptable names in Russian, based on the transcription which was common at the time of the battles. It is the transliterations of these names which are mistakes, and therefore useless in Western languages. --Aavat (talk) 21:57, 8 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I just want to emphasize that the title must be the form and the name which is most commonly used in the English language. It does not really matter whether the place name used in it is an English transliteration of a Russian transliteration of a Swedish name. We are not going to rename the Battle of Dunkirk because it uses the English transliteration of the French transliteration of West-Flemish "Duunkerkn" (no misprint) --Paul Pieniezny (talk) 11:49, 9 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
In my last post, I showed how erroneous the result can be when a Western name is transcribed to Russian and then transliterated to the Latin alphabet. Through the reference to the English edition of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, I also showed that the dominating practice is not to transliterate a cyrillized Western name, but to retranscribe it back to the original form of the name. The 31 volumes of this encyclopedia contain many thousands of examples of this practice. In your answer to this, you say that it does not matter what is correct. The only thing that matters is what is mostly used. And here, I must admit that Petri Krohn is right. The name Battle of Gangut is the most common name for this battle. On Google, there are 819 occurences of Battle of Gangut, but only 212 occurences of Battle of Hangö or Battle of Hanko. For the battle in Åland the ratio is even stronger. Battle of Grengam has 121 occurences, whereas Battle of Granhamn has only 5 occurances. The result of this discussion is then as follows: The name of the articles must be Battle of Gangut and Battle of Grengam. However, since the performed transliteration of the cyrillized Western names are not consistent with common practice, the reader has to be told that these battle names have been formed in a way which is not commonly accepted. Finally, the names consistent with the commonly accepted practice must be given. Here, the English translation of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia gives an overwhelming verification of this practice. I find this way of writing an article rather odd, but if this is the way it has to be, then so be it. I am happy that this practice is not common in other Wikipedia languages. When I consult an encyclopedia, I want to know the facts, and not be confused by widespread mistakes. To your last comment, I could not agree more (except that transliterations are used between alphabets, not between languages). Dunkirk is a well established English name of the city which in Dutch is called Duinkerke and in French is called Dunkerque. It is only natural that the English has their own name for an originally Flemish city. But Englishmen are normally polite people. They don't want to insult the inhabitants of Hanko by calling their city Gangut. Such a saying only brings back the memories of the expulsion which the inhabitants of this city had to accept in 1940. As long as Finland remains a free country, Gangut will never be an accepted name for Hanko in the English language. Hopefully, this digression explains the difference between Dunkirk and Gangut in battle names. -- Aavat (talk) 21:22, 9 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Added a section Name of the battle in accordance with the outcome of this discussion. --Aavat (talk) 17:37, 13 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Please note that Finnish sea chart TODAY says Suomi:Hankoniemi and Swedish: Hangö udd. Kosterboat (talk) 13:20, 22 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

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Just reading this and noticed that Russians have elevated Elefanten into a frigate which as far as i know Pram is not, Finnish wiki lists Elefanten as three masted schooner and one another source as gun barge (possible referance to Pram's flat bottom). Far cry from even the lowest class of frigates. And same information seems to be in the 'results' box of the battle as well. Also only Swedish wiki seems to be listing any losses for the Russians even though they were known to lose some ships.

Also noticed that Russian wiki included the whole Swedish squadron of the coast of Hanko into the battle though these didn't take any part into the battle. As well as telling that Russian fleet fought against numerically superior enemy while attacking 1 ship, 6 galleys and 4 skerry-boats with 99 galleys. Given that Swedish detachment had roughly 1000 men and Russian galley fleet roughly 13 000 - 14 000 men the difference in manpower was heavily in favor of Russians. All this seems to me to be rather misleading, of course I understand that this was the first real naval victory for the Russia but it shouldn't really affect the facts. That is the differences between the pages were rather surprising (I don't read Russian so if the translating program failed then please ignore the criticism). - 80.220.36.118 (talk) 14:57, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

English Wiki lists the Russian losses as 125 dead and 341 wounded and mentions no loss of Russian ships. Swedish Wiki lists the Russian losses as c. 55 galleys and 3000 men. Considering that the Russians mounted three attacks with 35, 80 and finally 95 galleys and that the first two were beaten back, the losses quoted by English Wiki seem rather light. Galleys had large crews (by English Wiki's figures some 150 per ship), so the quoted Russian casualties would be roughly equivalent to the crews of 3 galleys. That would have been less than 9% of the Russian vessels in the FIRST attack, so why didn't it succeed? I would think there are better sources on this battle available than the ones quoted.--Death Bredon (talk) 10:11, 20 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]


The battle has become heavily inflated in Russian mythologia, which I suspect is the reason why the large Russian losses are "forgotten". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.103.201.22 (talk) 13:37, 18 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

EXCUSE ME, BUT WHERE IS THE REAL FINNISH???????????/

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Excuse me, Wikiirussocyrillicanunses, but WHERE is the Finnish lagnuage TRUE ALPHABETIC TRANSLATION FOR THIS:

Riilahden taistelu

Since the Finnish is merely tranliterated, then it would be unfair for the Russian/Cyrillic to be featured, wouldn't it???

Therefore, out with the Wikiirussocyrillicanal translation, which is an affront in any English language text.

NCDane (talk) 22:11, 11 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

PS: A transliteration in Roman Alphabet of the Russian woud be fine NCDane (talk) 22:14, 11 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

PPS I am dleting sction on the name of the battle altogether, because it is founded upon this completely and entirely false and wrong and absurd premise: 

Transliteration of Russian forms of Western names is not common practice, except for bibliographical purposes.

Tranliteration IS common practice in my TWO Enclyclodeia Brittanica editions, and in all other English language Encyclopedia that I have ever seen, and I have seen a LOT of them.

It is most true, accurate and correct to say that in English language ENCYCLOPEDIC PRACTICE TRANSILTERATION is the ONLY accepted norm, outside the minds of a few witless Wikipedia policymakers , who violate all principle of untility by this RIDICULOUS affectation of theirs. NCDane (talk) 22:25, 11 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

DON'T SHOUT, OR YOU MAY BE BLOCKED!!!!
As for your argument, it has been rejected and your deletions reverted. Have a nice day! -- Petri Krohn (talk) 23:14, 11 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I have removed the sentence you quoted above. It doesn't really add value. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 23:22, 11 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
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