Talk:Ganges/Archive 7

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Requested move 24 January 2022

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: not moved. There is a strong, policy-based consensus that Ganges is the common name; most editors feel that WP:TITLEVAR is not applicable. (closed by non-admin page mover) Extraordinary Writ (talk) 23:25, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

---

Ganges → Ganga – I am an American who grew up only knowing the name "Ganges" for this river. I nevertheless consider this article to be in severe violation of the underlying principles of our article naming policy, and request it to be moved to Ganga.

I quote from our policy on article titles:

If a topic has strong ties to a particular English-speaking nation, the title of its article should use that nation's variety of English (for example, compare Australian Defence Force with United States Secretary of Defense).

I am here to suggest something absolutely groundbreaking, that to my current knowledge has never been suggested at Wikipedia:

This is the case even if the English-speaking nation is full of brown people, not just white people.

The national name for the river, in English, is Ganga. (Sources in case you aren't aware: The Indian Express lists about 1000 results for "Ganges" - many/most of them mispluralizations of "gang" or "Gange" - and over 8,000 results for "Ganga". The Hindustan Times also strongly prefers "Ganga". .)

So, having shown that in Indian English, the common name is Ganga, there is but one argument against it:

"We should use the name commonly used in the varieties of English spoken in majority-white countries."

Now, of course, they won't say that. They'll say "the common name in all countries except for the one the river actually runs through" or something of the sort. (And it's not even that common: see the pretty slight difference overall.)

So we'll have to imagine the following scenario.

Let's say that America, in a noble attempt to annoy the Brits, decides to start spelling the Thames as Tems. Let's suppose the Irish join in, as well. And then Canada, Australia and the rest of the commonwealth do as well. Suppose even their media follow along and spell it the "Tems".

Meanwhile, of course, the Brits continue to refer to the river as they always have, the "Thames".

...

Is there even the slightest chance that we would rename our article on the Thames to "Tems"?

...

Suppose every other country called the Mississippi River the "Mudwater". As long as America kept calling it "Mississippi", would we ever call it "Mudwater"?

No, of course not. And you know why - respect and deference are given to the national variety of English.

Unless, of course, that national variety of English is mostly spoken by brown people, in which case, sorry, we're keeping it at Ganges even though that's not their name for the river.

...

This has gone on for too long. It's been shot down before so many times because Wikipedia steadfastly refuses to give India the same respect it gives America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland and the UK. Once more I am asking for respect to be shown to people who so often are not given that respect. I'm once again asking for the river's article to be named after what the people it is closely tied with call it: Ganga. Red Slash 21:12, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

Too many unnecessary text and examples. Whether this will be moved or not will only and purely be based on WP:COMMONNAME. Is "Ganga" more common than "Ganges" in English-language sources, in general? Super Ψ Dro 22:45, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose per Dromaeosaurus explaination. "Ganga" only has a common name in Indian subcontinent than Ganges, while Ganges is more well-known name in country outside the Indian subcontinent per WP:COMMONNAME and WP:GLOBAL. 36.65.32.129 (talk) 23:33, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

Not even the subcontinent. In Bangladesh, the major English-language newspapers prefer both Ganges and Padma to Ganga (I showed in a pervious ill-fated page move.) Fowler&fowler«Talk» 00:55, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose. It is a trans-boundary river of Asia which is called "Ganga" in India and "Padma" in Bangladesh. See the references. I have written large parts of the article with user:Pfly, have painstakingly drawn the map of the headwaters of the river by hand, have traveled to India to take pictures both of the headwaters (see two) and of the statues of goddess Ganga in museums (see one), and to Bangladesh to view the floods in the Padma. Please don't push POV about respect. Such repetitive page moves are disruptive. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 23:48, 24 January 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose. If "Ganga" were the only name used in Indian English to refer to this river, then I might feel differently about it, but it's not. "Ganges" is also used in Indian English. And as the river also flows through Bangladesh, the "strong national ties" argument is even more muddled. The overwhelming common name across English globally for this subject is the current title, and that is where it should stay. And through it did not influence my opinion on this move request, I have to say that the nominator seemingly implying that anyone who opposes this nomination is racist is very close to crossing the line of Wikipedia:Civility. Rreagan007 (talk) 01:03, 25 January 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose, per WP:COMMONNAME - even if it ran solely through India, we would require the globally common name, per WP:MPN. BilledMammal (talk) 02:35, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

I would add Red Slash that if you want titles to reflect local English usage, rather than global, then the correct way to make this happen is to open an RFC to alter WP:ENGVAR to apply to names, in addition to vocabulary, spelling, and grammar. I don't think such an RFC would succeed, but it has a better chance of succeeding than this. BilledMammal (talk) 04:00, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose OPs rationale that they are speaking for "brown people" is faulty and, whether in good faith or not, a tad patronizing and possibly racist and this should be closed ASAP for that reason alone. Regardless, Ganges is commonly used in India. For example, a simple "Hotel Ganges" search throws up a large number of hotels and, almost certainly, these hotels do not cater solely to people from "majority-white" (sic) countries. --RegentsPark (comment) 03:25, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

Agree, this should be closed and OP warned for this. 146.112.47.91 (talk) 20:32, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

• Strong Support as per nom. Kpddg ^(talk) 04:36, 25 January 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose move. This has been discussed before, and there's no reasonable chance "Ganga" is the common name. O.N.R. ^(talk) 05:51, 25 January 2022 (UTC)
• Strong oppose. Ganges, not "Ganga" (or Padma) is the WP:COMMONNAME for the vast majority of native English speakers. Dāsānudāsa (talk) 09:43, 25 January 2022 (UTC)
• Support per nom. Showiecz (talk) 15:18, 25 January 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose OP falsely tries to make this a racial issue. Not everything is about race. 146.112.47.65 (talk) 20:30, 25 January 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose: In addition to what has been said above, a quick Google search shows that the name "Ganges" is used in Indian English by Indian news websites: [2] [3][4]. I also second considering warning the OP due to the rational used to open this move request. -- Spekkios (talk) 23:13, 25 January 2022 (UTC)
• Support - The West has a habit of mispronouncing words especially from India. Ganga is commonly used word in India and has been for last 5,000 years. It is a rare sight to see people calling "Ganga" as "Ganjeezzz". This hypothetical name is invention of the west. Scholars prefer using "Ganga" as we can see [5] the term "Ganga" with 3,04,000 hits and "Ganges" with [6] merely 2,32,000 hits, that clearly shows that scholars prefer the actual name "Ganga" rather than hypothetical name "Ganges". Apart from scholars the more commonly name used even in a regular google search is "Ganga" and not "Ganges". Ganga with 9,34,00,000 hits [7] and "Ganges" with 6,79,00,000 hits [8]; The term "Ganges" is a clear cut violation of WP:COMMONNAME.LearnIndology (talk) 06:26, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

• Your Google Scholar searches include results for things other than the river; when we include the term "river", results fall to 119,000 for "Ganges" and 83,600 for "Ganga" - although both of these continue to contain inappropriate results. Your Google results meanwhile include unreliable sources, and suffer from WP:GOOGLELIMITS. BilledMammal (talk) 06:38, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

  Including the term "river" will only muddle the search by including different results. The term "Ganga" and "Ganges" limits the search to relevant results. Motilal Banarsidass, the top publishers of Indology comes up with 16 results for "Ganges"[9] and 26 for "Ganga"[10]. And obviously a regular google search will include unreliable source, but at the same time it shows the commonly used term among people. LearnIndology (talk) 07:43, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

  Search needs to be in quotations, like this. BilledMammal (talk) 07:46, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

  Even with the quotations, "Ganga" has more results than "Ganges". LearnIndology (talk) 08:30, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

"Ganga" is also a goddess, as well as a personal name, multiple films and TV series, two royal houses, etc., etc. (See Ganga (disambiguation).) A simple Google search won't cut it.

Comparing "River" "Ganges" to "River" "Ganga" gives 120,000 vs 83,000 results. Dāsānudāsa (talk) 09:05, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

I see @BilledMammal: has already said basically the same thing above. I don't see how you could say that using the keyword "river" could "muddle" the results. Not using it will, for the reasons I've outlined above. "Ganga" is the name of many other things. Dāsānudāsa (talk) 09:09, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

Despite everything else, I'm not sure how the name "Ganges" is hypothetical. "Ganges" is clearly used both in India and internationally, so it's far from hypothetical, and indeed a genuine name for the river. Locations can have multiple names in multiple languages: that doesn't make other names "hypothetical". --Spekkios (talk) 09:16, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

"Ganges," moreover, has a derived adjective "Gangetic," which "Ganga" does not have. The proper way to do the Google Scholar search is: "Ganga" "river" OR "basin" OR "plain" -"Ram" (74.8 K links) and "Ganges" OR "Gangetic" "river" OR "basin" OR "plain" -"Ram" (150K links). Fowler&fowler«Talk» 10:18, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

This is rather a very solid argument. Thanks F&f for the adjectivated searches! How did you [find and] end up removing Ram? — DaxServer (talk · contribs) 10:25, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

I remembered Ganga Ram a civil engineer whose page I had edited, and Ramganga, also spelled Ram Ganga, a different river. There are other Gangas Dhauliganga, Rishi Ganga, Kalu Ganga, the last in Sri Lanka, but Ram Ganga is probably the best-known, I think. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 11:00, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

References

• Oppose. Ganges is still very definitely the most common name in English-language sources. -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:19, 26 January 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose - Ganges is demonstrated to be the English common name — DaxServer (talk · contribs) 06:43, 27 January 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose Come on this is absurd. To begin WP:TITLEVAR does not apply here, in order to be applied an article must have strong ties to that nation (as the nomination pointed out), something which the Ganges does not have; the river runs partly through Bangladesh. The Hindi name is ‘Ganga’ while the Bengali name is ‘Padma’ (as the lead of this article points out). In this case it make sense to use a neutral English name (that being ‘Ganges’). Secondly, ‘Ganges’ is overwhelmingly used in English language sources, this can be seen in Britannica, Columbia, The National Geographic Society as well as news sources like the BBC, The Guardian, The Times, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Reuters and The Associated Press. Finally I think that the nominator implying that editors that oppose this RM are racist is wrong and someone should notify them about this. Ale3353 (talk) 19:34, 27 January 2022 (UTC)
• Strong Oppose as the name "Ganges" is used throughout the world. Peter Ormond 💬 13:05, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose Seems like a WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS attempt that has no basis in the actual common name. Wikipedia merely follows what name is the most used in sources and doesn't dictate what is the proper name to be used. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 11:38, 30 January 2022 (UTC)

References

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Dams on the river

Please show mahit fans on the rivier 2409:4042:2C8B:2710:0:0:9349:E90F (talk) 10:49, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

Undiscussed change from Ganges to Ganga

Someone has recently changed the article to use Ganga as the main name. I could not simply revert due to many intervening edits. I have made a start at fixing this, but do not have enough time to finish it right now. I am asking for other editors to continue the corrections, starting with the History section. --Khajidha (talk) 16:43, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

I think I have gotten this taken care of now. I left direct references to the goddess, uses of "ganga" as a component of larger names, and direct quotations and such alone. --Khajidha (talk) 14:41, 8 January 2019 (UTC)

I have started updating the name to “Ganga” , irrespective whether references to any historic article or publishing “Ganges” is not the correct name of the river. Someone in past stating an incorrect name/pronunciation doesn’t mean we have to stick with it. KShukal (talk) 13:32, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

Same applies to “Shiv” (not “Shiva”), “Pandav” (not “Pandava”), “Dharm” (not “Dharma”), “Karm” (not “Karma”) and many more such misspelled Sanskrit words. Appreciate if any user or Wikipedia provide assistance in cleaning these rather long standing misspelling which will eventually correct the mispronunciations. KShukal (talk) 13:38, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

I am very confused as to why the name is not "Ganga" ? I just don't understand. I assume good faith, but many of the arguments I am reading from posters defending the use of the term "Ganges" seem to fall flat. For example, India has formalized that the city of "Mumbai" be called "Mumbai" and not Bombay. The Wikipedia page reflects this change, even if in Pop culture for the west, Bombay is still the predominant term, which it is. I am simply flummoxed as to why the official name on this site is Ganges? It has been codified by the Indian government to be said as Ganga. What more is needed? The name is what it is. If a person says their name is "X", but many people know this person by name "Y", there seemingly is not a clear demarcation of which name should be used to indicate the subjectivity of the person in question, at least philosophically. But Wikipedia should weigh both of these carefully. In this case it seems that there is enough codification and justification to use the word "Ganga". In other cases, the popular term is best used, such as "Magic Johnson", but the key distinction between that example and this one is that Magic Johnson is not disputing the fact that he happily goes by "Magic" and not his real name Earvin. Thelovingllama (talk) 18:00, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

"even if in Pop culture for the west, Bombay is still the predominant term..." This is the thing, it isn't. "Mumbai" is the common name in the West. If anything, "Bombay" is far more common in India. Dāsānudāsa (talk) 16:49, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

The name is Ganga and it is not changed since the history of this country existed. The government itself show it by tha name of Ganga as its authentic name. You can do some research on it. My home is just 1 km range from Ganga but I have never heard a single soul saying it "Ganges". I also have done some research as in Bangladesh it is also called the Ganga. So calling "Ganges" for the convince of speaking is truly misleading and false information. Moreover the the greek point of view is null and void as the name river is given by the locals not the foreign visitors visiting any country, it is simple logic. Do what is right and change the name of "Ganges" to its real name "Ganga". Adichoudhary123456 (talk) 04:18, 1 May 2021 (UTC)

UNSC- A/RES/76/L.22/Rev.1 (10 November 2021). Name change to Ganga is welcomed and needed. Kindly don't violate UNGA consensus on Rights to Indigenous Peoples. If the indigenous of India term it Ganga, its Ganga for you and me. Historically speaking, it became Ganges only for convenience to pronounce, for British, that doesn't cause official name change. Official use can be found in india.gov.in, nmcg.nic.in, mppcb.in further more in wwf.org.UK and thethirdpole.net. A notable user Fowler&fowler shall refrain from "unconstructive edits" or "disruptive edits" (as the latter acknowledged) to revert Ganga to Ganges. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bitter Writer (talk • contribs) 10:22, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

Neither the Indian government nor the UN has any power over Wikipedia or English language usage. And "official" is pretty much meaningless when it comes to English usage, as there is no organization with the power to control it. --Khajidha (talk) 18:35, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

A discussion on this matter has just been closed - see lower down. The change won't be made. Johnbod (talk) 19:15, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

Then why is it bothering you, Khajidha? Johnbod please refer Sanjeet's paper - see higher up - as to why this is troublesome. The below discussion puts an argument people unaware of name Ganga outside India, one may argue we dont know a local hero's name outside regional territory yet their name cant be changed here. Do not delete name over "postcolonial mindset" (Sanjeet's paper publish) rather aim at egalitarian principle of tolerance...over...a...name— Preceding unsigned comment added by Bitter Writer (talk • contribs) 08:20, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

Reply to Fowler&fowler: "Government's websites are of little value in establishing reliability."

I have to disagree yet I see you mistrust the above sources I've mentioned, so I will be mentioning far more legitimate ones based on Wiki's citations, given in point 2 below. You've also asked for citation use to change to Ganga but given we have those citations for Ganges, we continue using Ganges. Drawing from your words, Ganges being official isnt cited appropriately on the Wikipage- citation [5] reads (a) recommendation (b) FOR USE OF BRITISH GOVERNMENT, (a government source) nor is this for Universal use, citation [6] hyperlink has clearly stated it is used as such through LCSH rule which the Wikipage doesnt and cant follow (LCSH is only for library topic division of books and that was their only mandate written) and this is used only to INDICATE topics of the actual library resources and not officially change names Eg: Italy -> Mathematical models indicates what one can find in section/topic Italy inside the library offline/online when they search vice versa- it doesnt mean Math only belongs to Italy, there is also Government policy -> Italy which you can understand. Nonetheless, relying on this library is an issue:

US Library of Congress (which means for serving the US Congress) is only for Official Use and NOT National Library of USA [331dot-> this is "de facto" NOT "de jure" i.e not national], Wiki/other sources can distinguish official vs national clearly Eg: Indian official languages. LOC themselves state their "collections" which havent included many natural language terms are for Congress use. Albeit they do state- the library welcomes scholars from across the country to freely use its services (in this case Topic name, that is where Ganges was from in citation 6). However, India does seem to have a national library who's national repository only recognises Ganga and not once for Ganges. From your opinion, Govt source still isnt reliable, but both citation 5 and 6 are from Govt sources which are flexible and for limited usage- 5 from British, 6 from Legislative branch of USA. I hope I have drawn your attention and I assume you abide this and follow "Ganga" now as i've only shown the point you've relied upon to in fact support "Ganga". — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bitter Writer (talk • contribs) 17:10, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

New edits by Fowler&fowler to possibly make his case stronger on name Ganges not Ganga includes using research papers as citations. These are what lack credibility. Those papers he cited albeit were written by Ashok Swain, a notable UNESCO member you can look up but wasnt he part of a controversy he was proven wrong in just this year? Fowler time to time refuses to rationally make choices on this page. It's unclear as to what motivates him. I've shown how his earlier logic he pivoted around was proving him wrong, now he shifts to this rather than correcting himself.

Ashok Swain unfortunately isnt reliable- he wants a cold war b/w China & US to happen (his words, not mine), he's a proven fake news peddler over communal and business issues spotted in Shailesh Shah v State of Gujarat case and an "accused" 'eminent hatemonger', 'hinduphobe' (when he targeted a NASA intern girl). I'm not trying to target him, im concerned only about how this man's paper seemed reliable. After all, its a research paper. And why didnt you just correct yourself when I proved you wrong using only facts and never opinions- see bold text above. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bitter Writer (talk • contribs) 10:37, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

Fun fact- Indian Supreme Court makes use for Ganga not Ganges. This can be seen in infamous M C Mehta v UoI case under Justice Venkataramiah, E.S. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bitter Writer (talk • contribs) 10:55, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

Absolutely none of this has anything to do with WP:COMMONNAME, which is the relevant policy here (when claiming, as @Bitter Writer: and others have) that "Ganga" is the name most used for this river in English. Dāsānudāsa (talk) 11:05, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

Thats precisely why its under Fun Fact. Why dont u address the other points appropriately and quit complaining? Another user has already pointed out how Ganga is used more commonly than Ganges which adds WP:due weight and WP:Tertiary. Also, Google Ngram shows how Ganga use is much higher today, granted it was less before and Ganges was higher but Wiki's COMMONNAME indicates contemporary use and not throughout history. And where Ganges is used in international documents, Ganga is kept there too shows wider acceptance Eg: wwf.org.UK and thethirdpole.net. But ignoring this since last line isnt under Commonname, Ganga has become the most common out of the two as provided by that user and Google data- scroll down below for that user's points (I lost it, but basically how many searches you find by Ganga vs Ganges, former has multiple more which adds more weight.)

Btw, the idea for using Google's Ngram came from you. Thank you. But I would invite you to react to my non-fun fact points. Constructive discussion, consensual editing will only happen when both sides are rational. Albeit me pushing for this Ive clearly separated facts, opinions and what I understand Wiki cant make use. I expect this rationality from you, if you are ready to change to Ganga when factually proven wrong and within Wiki rules please continue. Else you may quit discussing this.

@Fowler&fowler: has shown the exact opposite, ie that Ganges is the common name in English, below (see Talk:Ganges#reviving discussion for Page name to be changed to Ganga with ganges redirect to it). I see you didn't use your 48-hour ban from this page to do some useful editing elsewhere. Could it be that you're a Single-purpose account? Dāsānudāsa (talk) 11:36, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

So that only levels the field. Im not sure how he got the numbers but what he's done is use "any time" which ive explained to you just now how contemporary use is what we need- not 1800s, 1900s. And NGram shows how Ganges used in books has become significantly lower than Ganga used in books (including novels, academic publishers, encyclopedias, dictionaries) No im not single use account. Ive been on other pages for hours and I didnt find any need to edit them. So yes ive explored other places. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bitter Writer (talk • contribs) 11:51, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

I don't see how you get "levels the field", much less that Ganga is more common. Here's an ngram looking only at the period from 2000 to 2019: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Ganges%2CGanga&year_start=2000&year_end=2019&corpus=26&smoothing=0&case_insensitive=true --Khajidha (talk) 18:30, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

hmm, at least i'd accept im wrong, i checked individually which seemed like Ganga was used more than Ganges. Just like the pages Allahabad-Prayagraj and Mumbai-Bombay, i'll write Ganges, officially called Ganga . Im down for this final change, NGRAM shows significant use of both with very less differences. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bitter Writer (talk • contribs) 05:03, 19 November 2021 (UTC)

I'm not, seeing as the Ganges hasn't been 'officially' renamed by the government like Bombay, Madras, Calcutta, etc. (that I know of), so to link to List of renamed places in India isn't correct in this case. Unless you can find a source that says it has. Dāsānudāsa (talk) 07:04, 19 November 2021 (UTC)

I don't believe that changes should be made without discussion in this case. But, in my opinion, Ganga is the proper name. Indian English is English, too. According Wikipedia Manual of Style: National Varieties of English, "If there is a strong relationship to a specific region or dialect, use that dialect". The Ganga is in India, so it makes more sense to follow Indian English than British English. This is an English article, so we use the English, and not the Hindi name. But Ganga is English, it is Indian English. Furthermore, it is the official name of the river. To insist that the main name is "Ganges" astonishes and dismays me.
As for those referencing WP:COMMONNAME, "Ganga" is the common name in India. It is also a more consistent name with other articles. See Ganga (goddess), Ganga Action Plan, Ganga Mahasabha, and National Ganga River Basin Authority.
I might add the point that search "Ganga" has about 1,490,000,000 results, while search "Ganges" has about 50,200,000 results. Talib1101 (talk) 22:57, 5 March 2022 (UTC)

Beyond the WP policies about naming that have been addressed above, the Ganges is a transboundary river of South Asia that flows through India and Bangladesh. It is called Ganga in India and Padma in Bangladesh. Please read the many citations in the lead. The river is not India's alone to claim ownership rights over its name. In Bangladeshi English (as I've shown somewhere) Ganges is the majority usage for the entire river, not Ganga. This is also not an article about the river lopped off at the Farakka barrage, where India (controversially) diverts much of the river's water by a feeder canal to the Hooghly (which is otherwise unconnected to the Ganges) We do use "Ganga" for the goddess, and for the various Indian government programs at alleviating the distress in India's stretch of the river to both humans and animals. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 23:14, 5 March 2022 (UTC)

The river is NOT called Ganges. It’s only and real and true name is: Ganga. This is the only name it should be known as - the river is so sacred and significant, it’s insulting to change the name just to suit the speech of western speakers, as the colonisers changed the name. This is the name according to Indian culture and hence should not be changed. This is whitewashing!Any place or river’s name in a western country has not been changed to suit the accessibility or pronunciation of other people, so why should it be done for Bharat’s river. It’s the name given by the European colonists, not India; it’s never ever been known as ‘Ganges’ so why should India keep the name given by the colonisers for the sake of THEIR easy pronunciation. India has got independence, so so why should these names be kept, let the real name be known. And the argument that it’s known is Ganga in India, is such a weak argument as it’s known predominantly and worldwide as Ganges (on a global scale has more impact) ;this is spreading the wrong information as people will only know it as Ganges (which is not its name, and the name is very important, remembering the value if it being one the holiest rivers in Bharat). Most non-Indians have never even heard of Ganga (and I know this from personal experience) as they only know ‘Ganges’ that’s why it’s so important that the correct name is only there. It’s my humble request to please change the name to Ganga and allow these changes permanently. Also, it should be added to the history section, that the real name of the river is Ganga; Ganges is not the correct name and was changed to dominate over Indian culture. This is not okay, the true name should be written and the real truth needs to be informed and if you keep reverting it back to the name given by colonisers, the reality will not be known. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 149.12.14.215 (talk) 17:45, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

No one is stopping you calling it "Ganga", but the article title should reflect common English usage, per WP:COMMONNAME. Wikipedia reflects actual usage, it doesn't try to influence it. Dāsānudāsa (talk) 09:07, 1 June 2022 (UTC)

Also, the argument that "[a]ny place or river’s name in a western country has not been changed to suit the accessibility or pronunciation of other people" is clearly not true.

For example:

इंगलैंड

Ingalaind

थेम्स

Thems

लंडन

Landan

Etc., etc. Dāsānudāsa (talk) 09:10, 1 June 2022 (UTC)

But if the English usage name is anglicised, then it must be reverted to the original name. And it’s part of the process of removing the signs of the colonial past, anglicised names should be officially discouraged and reverted to its original name. And it’s not about a single person calling it, it’s making sure the whole world globally knows it’s real name. It’s such a weak point to say it should be English usage, when the word isn’t English itself, why change the words? Accept the real, original name and keep it as only that globally, not for one person, one country, it’s a global impact of having the true name. And your examples are not what I mean; I’m saying no western country has globally changed the name of any place of theirs to due the speech of other people. Your examples are how certain people call them, not the world nor is it globally known or written in books with those name, but ‘Ganges’ is. 1AB 111 (talk) 16:11, 1 June 2022 (UTC)

WP:RGW Summer ^talk 14:33, 27 August 2023 (UTC)

References

Discussion about Ganges Valley

Hello. Is there another page going more into detail about geography like the Ganges Valley and other places? Because I think they could use more elaborating on, given their importance.

Currently, Ganges Valley redirects to Gangaridai, which I think is unnecessarily confusing for readers looking for info about one of the most important locales in history. GoutComplex (talk) 16:55, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

Indo-Gangetic Plain for one. I've changed the redirects (both capa) to that. Johnbod (talk) 17:43, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

I wonder of Ganges Basin might not be better. Punjab, for example, is not in the Ganges valley. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:27, 27 August 2023 (UTC)