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Recent changes of text on the Armenian genocide

In recent days two long-standing formulations regarding the Armenian genocide have been changed in this article:

  1. In the lead, "Starting before World War I, but growing increasingly common and violent during it, major atrocities were committed by the Ottoman government against the Armenians, Assyrians and Pontic Greeks." was changed to " Starting before World War I, but growing increasingly common and violent during it, major atrocities culminating in genocide were committed by the Ottoman government against the Armenians, Assyrians and Pontic Greeks."
  2. In the body "the Ottoman government started the deportation of its ethnic Armenian population, resulting in the death of approximately 1.5 million Armenians in the Armenian Genocide." was changed to "the Ottoman government started the extermination of its ethnic Armenian population, resulting in the death of approximately 1.5 million Armenians in the Armenian Genocide."

I've played a part in introducing the word "genocide" into the lead myself. However, as these changed originated from casual IP edits, I believe more careful examination is needed to determine if they comply with WP:NPOV.

Let me first make a hopefully unnecessary policy note to ensure that we're all on the same page. Per WP:NPOV, in treating controversial subjects, our mandate is not to determine which views found in RSs are and aren't correct. It is rather to represent "fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all of the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic," which "applies to both what you say and how you say it". To establish due weight of different formulations, I'm using the same approach I use for any other subject: attempting to collect a representative sample of sources, starting with general and prominent multi-author works published by leading academic presses. In these sources, institutionalized editorial process is supposed to achieve a balanced presentation of prominent academic viewpoints for a non-specialized audience. In this case, I've searched for all relevant passages in Cambridge History series and major encyclopedias from Brill and OUP. I have further looked at several general surveys: three recent surveys of Ottoman history from major university presses, the top recommendation from the "Ottoman empire" article in Oxford Bibliographies (Finkel), and a widely respected general survey (Lapidus).

I have excerpted the most relevant passages in User:Eperoton/sandbox/Armenian_Genocide_Quotes. They represent 10 publications, some including quotes from multiple authors, though some of them are very brief or tangential.

I invite all interested contributors to examine and discuss this sample. Here a the conclusions I draw from it:

  1. None of these sources support the new phrasing "genocide committed by the Ottoman government" or "the Ottoman government started the extermination". Even though such phrasing exists in other RSs (a passage from Finkel which I haven't quoted and the Encyclopedia of the Ottoman Empire which didn't meet my selection criteria identify this as the Armenian perspective which has been gaining international support, though based on my personal understanding, it could perhaps be characterized more to the point as a view commonly held in the genocide studies community), WP:NPOV doesn't allow us to embrace formulations in such thorough dissonance with general academic publications on Ottoman history.
  2. I agree with EtienneDolet's concern about the phrasing "started deportations ... resulting in the death", which may suggest an accidental outcome. I would suggest changing it to "started deportations ..., whose methods and accompanying massacres resulted etc".
  3. None of these sources venture to state as a fact which elements of the Ottoman government carry the blame for the genocide. Some present the role of the Special Organization as an influential hypothesis, without venturing to delineate its relationship to the government as a whole.
  4. On use of the word "genocide", we have to find phrasing that fairly reflects 1) these sources, most of which present it as one perspective or don't use at all; 2) the public sphere, where it is common currency; and 3) IAGS, which regards it as a moral imperative. Likewise, we need to reflect the fact that there exists a prominent research community where the culpability of "the Ottoman government" is an accepted fact, without taking its side and ignoring general academic publications on the subject of this article, where it is not. In the body, the Armenican/IAGS view was already presented in the image caption which stated: "The Armenian Genocide was the Ottoman government's systematic extermination of its Armenian subjects." The term "genocide" was already prominently featured in the text of this section as well. For the lead, I'm ok with the long-standing version, since it refers to a broader range of events, for which "major atrocities" is an appropriately inclusive term; it also links to the genocide articles which present almost exclusively the genocide studies perspective. I would also support the modification "major atrocities culminating in genocide were committed by Ottoman authorities". The word "authorities" is a generic term, which is consistent both with "the government" and "some elements of the government" but does not take sides in this dispute.

However, based on this review, the recent changes do not appear to be compliant with WP:NPOV. Eperoton (talk) 14:04, 25 April 2017 (UTC)

I take it that there are no takers for trying to build consensus for these recent changes. I'll revert the two passages back to their long-standing form and then address EtienneDolet's concern as proposed above. As I mentioned, I think there are ways to work a reference to genocide into the text of the lead without violating NPOV, but since I think the earlier version was acceptable, I'm not going to fiddle with it unless someone would like to present policy-based objections to it and have a broader discussion. Eperoton (talk) 22:31, 30 April 2017 (UTC)
No, I disagree with your edits for rather simple reasons. In this edit, you removed the word genocide from the lead. That's a no-no. Genocide is the term that accurately describes what happened to the Armenians, Assyrians, and Pontic Greeks. As for this edit, I've already explained above that the massacres didn't happen haphazardly. It was state organized systematic genocide. The deportation was just one of several ways to eliminate the Armenian population from its ancestral homeland. There were also drownings, poisoning, forced starvation, forced assimilation, and etc. I've already outlined this above and there's no need to repeat this again. Étienne Dolet (talk) 06:14, 1 May 2017 (UTC)
First of all, as far as I can tell, the term genocide hasn't been used in this lead until you were apparently inspired by the recent IP edit to push for it inclusion, so the first part of your comment is a bit of historical revisionism WP style. Per WP:CONSENSUS, since you're trying to include this new language, you should be seeking consensus to arrive at a new policy-compliant version. I invited you to do so and waited for several days, but you ignored this discussion and came back just for a revert with this perfunctory response.
Secondly, we aren't here to promote our views about how these events should be described, but rather to examine how they are described in RSs and how those sources should be summarized proportionally per NPOV. You seem to be intent on ignoring this policy even after I quoted it for you (though frankly there's no indication that you've read a single word in the source review above or what I wrote about it).
Thirdly, you've ignored what I wrote about your earlier comments, and namely that they were variations of WP:OR. That's not to say that your position isn't based on RSs you've read, but so far you've made no effort to present the language used in those sources for consideration in this discussion.
As I wrote, I don't see why the term "genocide" shouldn't be incorporated into the lead, as long as it reflects the relevant bodies of RSs without taking sides about their different usage. My source review indicates that the current version isn't compliant with NPOV. The issue is not only the expression "committed by the Ottoman government", which can be brought into agreement with different viewpoints by using the inclusive term "authorities" instead, but also the advocacy for the genocide designation for all those events in WP voice, addressing which would require different syntax. As far as I can tell, the use of this term for the atrocities against Assyrians and Greeks lags is nowhere as prominent as it is for the Armenian genocide, and I haven't seen evidence that it has been adopted even by a significant minority of general history texts. In particular, it wasn't used in any of the sources in my sample, and even an edited volume coming out of the genocide studies community like A Question of Genocide: Armenians and Turks at the End of the Ottoman Empire (OUP 2011), which I've been looking at, generally avoids it. You've made no argument against this reading of the reviewed sources, much less why standard history texts on Ottoman history should be ignored in this article. If you'd like to present a representative source review of language used in genocide studies publications, you're welcome to do so, and I will work with you in arriving at a formulation that fairly reflects all these sources. However, you aren't going to resolve this dispute by ignoring WP policies. Eperoton (talk) 01:03, 2 May 2017 (UTC)
To understand the WP:CONSENSUS on this matter, a simple glance at the Armenian Genocide article (and in particular the first sentence) should suffice. The article isn't called "Armenian Deportations" nor is it called "Armenian Atrocities"...it's called Armenian Genocide. And it's called that for a reason. That's what the community decided through years and years of discussions based on information from WP:RSs and consensus building procedures, so there's no need to WP:REHASH those arguments here. With that said, anything more, anything less of that site-wide consensus is considered a serious misunderstanding of the long-standing consensus concerning those articles. Users have been banned on Wikipedia for tampering with that language even with the most unnoticeable of changes. For example, C1cada was banned from the Armenian topic area because he referred to it as genocide instead of Genocide and genocidal instead of genocide. A big no-no in this topic area and I suggest you don't go down this path. Also, you simply can't decide on your own which "atrocities" are more genocidal and which aren't from your own personal observations. You're just one user and hence can't simply override the definitive consensus of the Assyrian Genocide and the Greek Genocide by saying such things as it hasn't gained much traction in the academic world in terms of it being considered a genocide. That's POV-pushing and it is in overt opposition to this project's consensus at these articles.
So from what I understand, you want to redefine what the AG was in this entire project. That's what your edit effectively entails. But your definition is to downsize the systematic nature of the event by reducing the Ottoman government's intent in the AG as merely deporting its Armenian subjects rather than systematically exterminating them. It's a ridiculous claim but you're entitled to your own opinion. But if you want to try it out, the only way you can get changes here is if you can get your changes there. That is, if you can convince the users at the Armenian Genocide article that the Ottoman government merely enacted a deportation and that massacres just happened to accompany them, by all means do it. Obviously, we can't reach a consensus on this article because the subject, though connected, is different and AG studies are of a world of its own. Such a major change across Wikipedia would require a larger group of users who are interested in the AG, so try proposing it there. But I must say, good luck with that. Étienne Dolet (talk) 02:23, 2 May 2017 (UTC)
I hope you've enjoyed knocking down these strawmen. What it boils down to is that you're advocating introducing new language into the article without bothering to provide RSs that support it or acknowledging a representative sample of RSs which does not, and refusing to cooperate in finding consensus phrasing. The only forms of site-wide consensus are those which have been arrived at by a site-wide decision process. WP:NPOV belongs to that class. Text that may be found in other articles does not. Based on my earlier brushes with an editor active in the area of AG, I've come to expect seeing vague allusions to denialist talking points and "blaming the victims" taking place of NPOV rationales, though I frankly did not expect to find one in a context as incongruous as this one. That said, a week's history of this thread speaks for itself. You now have a (Personal attack removed), and there's no indication that anyone here cares for a proper NPOV-based discussion of these recent changes. If that's the case even for an audience who I would expect to be familiar with or at least have regard for standard texts on Ottoman history, there's little chance that it will be different for casual contributors brought in through an RFC or noticeboard. As someone who's not personally opposed to the causes you're advocating for, I have a long list of things I'd rather have been doing on WP than splitting hairs on these formulations, but as someone who cares about the project's integrity, I'm disturbed to see this topical microclimate where advocacy can proceed without being checked by normal policy considerations. Eperoton (talk) 23:41, 2 May 2017 (UTC)
Eperoton, my wording is much more aligned with the first sentence of the Armenian Genocide article than yours. What you're effectively doing here is redefining what the AG is on not only this article, but in all of Wikipedia. I have the good faith to believe you are doing this inadvertently, after all, you are an excellent editor, but I must say that your wording is more aligned with the denalist perspective than it is with our current and more accurate wording prescribed at our very own AG article. A denialist can easily misconstrue your wording as the Ottoman government merely started deportations, but massacres were not part of the initial goal and that the massacres only accompanied them or were used merely as a method. Why's that a problem? Well it can also mean such massacres were not systematic or that the killing of Armenians was part of a method and not a plan. Remember, deportation was merely a cover up of an extermination policy and that the deportation was not the only way to kill off the Armenians. Drownings, poisonings, forceful assimilation, forced starvation, hangings, and outright killings were all part of the plan too. In other words, the deportations were only part of the plan, but your wording makes it seem it was the only plan. The only plan set forth by the Ottoman government was that of extermination. Nothing more, nothing less. And do you actually think I won't be able to find a source that says something to the likes of "the Ottoman government started a campaign to exterminate the Armenians"? Of course I can. I could find tons. But that discussion is moot. Any one source can have different wording. Some sources offer a more detailed analysis and breakdown of the AG, while other sources can merely provide a summary. Our task is to provide wording that properly reflects what we believed happened to the Armenians in the most accurate way possible based on reliable sources. If you think the first sentence of the AG article is wrong, then please bring up a proposal there. As of now, we can't have two different explanations for this same event. And look, if you really need a source for the sake of this sentence in question having a citation, I can give you this one: [1]. The wording: "A genocide committed against Armenians by the regime of the Committee of Union and Progress (Ittihad ve Terakki Jemyeti), also known as the Young Turks, in the Ottoman Empire in the period following April 24, 1915 (1915–1923)" is succinct and on the mark. As for Dr.K., I can say that he's a veteran user and that he has been editing this article (and other Turkish related articles) for a longgggg time (since 2009 in fact) and has reverted similar edits in the past. Étienne Dolet (talk) 05:45, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
I removed the PA per WP:NPA and WP:AGF. My revert was based not only because the word "genocide" was removed, but also because of the atrocious grammar of the sentence:

...deportation of its ethnic Armenian population, whose methods and accompanying massacres resulted in the death of approximately 1.5 million Armenians...

That's obviously faulty grammar, not to mention a bad attempt at WP:OR. "Methods" don't result in the death of people, especially the deaths of 1.5 million people who were genocide victims. Except, if that was yet another denialist attempt at blaming the victims of the genocide for their deaths. Instead of being thanked for making this edit, I get personally attacked. But I have seen this attitude before. In topics covered by WP:AA2, disruption is often accompanied by personal attacks. I think the plan is to "shame" neutral editors from participating. Promoting such inferior edits with edit-warring, PAs and lack of WP:AGF is appalling. Dr. K. 06:15, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
@Dr.K.: Just a quick note before I have time for a substantive response. The words you removed above were meant as a characterization of your action rather than person, but even as such they were inappropriate by my own standards and I can see how they can be interpreted as personal attack. I apologize without reservation. Eperoton (talk) 13:40, 4 May 2017 (UTC)

@EtienneDolet: I appreciate your courteous response. First, let's separate the two passages involved in this discussion. Reading further sources is bringing me closer to your position on the passage in the body, I'll set that issue aside, especially since Chamboz seems to have withdrawn the concerns which have prompted me to look into this in the first place. As for the lead, my understanding of our dispute took a tumble while I browsed through the article history trying to figure out how such an apparently contentious phrasing had survived for so long. You can imagine my surprise when I saw that the last consensus version ("major atrocities were committed") was achieved in October when you removed a reference to AG from the text of the lead. The current phrasing ("major atrocities culminating in genocide") appeared a few days ago when I attempted to introduce the word "genocide" into the lead instead of reverting a clumsy IP edit. Then, while my source review led me to raise objections to the phrasing I chose, you insisted on keeping it unchanged while objecting to your own version. This alone easily makes it one of the strangest disputes I've been involved in! Can you help me understand what's going on here?

I have no doubt that you are one of the most knowledgeable editors we have on this topic, but I'm afraid I'm not getting much help from you in being convinced of your case. You've given me no pointers to relevant discussions of sources on the AG talk (my quick search didn't turn up any), nor entry points to a systematic source view. I'm not averse to the challenge of trying to argue your case from the sources, since I want to learn more about the subject, so I picked some myself: the historiographical survey by Ronald Grigor Suny in A Question of Genocide (which I can share), and another one by Donald Bloxham and Fatma Müge Göçek. I'm sure these scholars of AG need no introduction. From the Ottoman history perspective, there's a peer-reviewed survey by David Gutman, a young specialist in Armenian history during late Ottoman years who did his PhD with Quataert. If someone knows of other high-quality surveys, I'd be interested to know what they are.

These sources and a closer inspection of the books I surveyed above leads me to downgrade the WP:WEIGHT of the uncertainty expressed in these books on the involvement of the central government. Following the citation trail in the books leads to more tertiary sources and I don't see what specialized secondary sources they derive from. This prompts me to give more wait to Bloxham & Göçek's assertion about it being a "state affair" with multiple ministries involved. Additionally, the political pressures described by Gutman (and elsewhere) lead me to treat with caution the language some of these books use in dancing around the g-word, though it's not clear to me how this should be handled per NPOV.

On the other hand, aside from issues of language, these sources point out another major concern with the language I chose. You phrasing was an inclusive reference to atrocities stretching from the Hamidian massacres to AG. As I can recognize now, I have turned it into a teleological reading of the earlier massacres, presenting them all as a single arc of action by an undifferentiated "Ottoman government". This expresses Dadrian's view of AG as a manifestation of a "culture of massacre" inherent in the late Ottoman polity. It's not just Gutman who criticizes this perspective as essentialist, but also Kevorkian (according to Gutman) and Suny. I've tried coming up with incremental changes that would address this concern without introducing other problems, but the only one I can find so far is your original version.

Finally, we seem to have two areas of disagreement on general points of policy:

1) Your take on NPOV seems to be reflected in this proposition: "Our task is to provide wording that properly reflects what we believed happened [...] in the most accurate way possible based on reliable sources." I think that proposition is not the right interpretation of NPOV. As I wrote above, NPOV rather requires us to reflect all significant views found in RSs proportionally, regardless of which ones we think are correct. Please confirm that we have a general disagreement on this point of policy, so we can air it on the NPOV noticeboard.

2) Your argument about site-wide consensus is not based on any policies or community standards I'm aware of. In this case, you seem to want to choose the language related to AG in this article without investing the time to achieve consensus. I don't know of an appropriate noticeboard for this, so I'll consult an admin on this general point and you can clarify your views on their talk page or consult another admin for a second opinion.

Thanks for your attention. Eperoton (talk) 02:25, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

Firstly, when it comes to this edit, my immediate concern was the problem of having two Wikileaks for the AG in the same sentence. I did not give much thought when it came to the sentence itself. But I would like to see that sentence revised to "culminating in genocide" because atrocities sounds a bit vague. After all, genocides are all atrocities, but not all atrocities are genocides.
Secondly, we can get into a lot of intricacies here regarding the AG. I've explained over and over again that the Ottoman government with all its instruments of power enacted a policy of extermination. What's mind boggling here is that you're willing to say that the Ottoman government enacted deportation, but when it comes to massacres you kick back and say it was just various ministries and hardly a government sponsored affair. Meanwhile, I've shown you evidence upon evidence that the Ottoman government not only knew about these massacres, but instructed them to happen covertly. The testimonies of Akif Pasha should be suffice in proving that. And by the way, Akcam recently discovered an authentic telegram that corroborates this. This is not to say such testimony from senators like Akif Pasha weren't sufficient enough evidence in charging the Ottoman government's involvement in the massacres prior to this discovery because testimonies are good enough evidence in and of themselves especially when we have proof that the Ottoman government purged and burnt these telegraphs. I'm also forced to give you a little bit more of a rundown as to why the Ottoman government is to blame. For one, the Ottoman Empire was under martial law since the start of the Balkan Wars in 1913. A considerable amount of power was thus vested in the ministries. The ministry now had the authority to swiftly shut down the parliament to enact "war time measures". The deportations, as a matter of fact, happened with a suspended Ottoman parliament under the convenient yet bogus excuse of "war time measures". What's even more damning is that the parliament was suspended simply because Talat and his clique were afraid various senators would speak out against the deportations while the world was watching (source). This also helped the task of annihilating the Armenians a lot easier. In short, the ministry BECAME the government. The CUP became the sole surveyors of the AG throughout its course. So you keep pointing to a "government" which I assume you mean parliament, then I must ask you, what parliament? Which legislative body was active throughout the course of the deportations? Even if it was active (prior and after the deportations it started up again), how much power did it have under martial law Turkey? Did those powerless and clueless senators know about the covert telegrams Talat was sending to governors and military commanders in order to proceed with massacre? Do you think Talat was dumb enough to relay that secret information to them? I think the answers to these questions are rather obvious. Even if there was no martial law, the ministry still counts as a government because it used the government in its central, provincial, and local authority to achieve its goal. Much like the Nazi Party in Germany, the CUP with all its dictatorial powers had unchecked authority to conduct a systematic plan to annihilate the Armenians. And it did so rather effectively.
I can tell you that our article on Wikipedia is more or less the basis of how the AG should be treated on other articles as well. I say "more or less" because we can perhaps use different wording (i.e. annihilation instead of extermination). But never should we change it to the extent you want to change it. Besides, the question of how the AG should be presented on Wikipedia doesn't start at the Ottoman Empire article, but the Armenian Genocide article. Also, we can't get enough users to be interested in this topic by starting up this discussion in another article. We need to keep the AG topic to where it belongs so those users who are interested can give their specialized opinions on the matter. With that said, the first sentence of the article, in my 10 years of editing Wikipedia, hasn't really changed much, and it has been discussed quite a lot actually. There have been some users that have played around with it but the gist of it has remained the same. The most recent debate was over the use of "ancestral homelands" as part of the first sentence. That was rightly removed. At any rate, passive language, denalist talking points (whether it be intentional or not), or outright denialism even in articles outside of the AG has been discouraged (to say the least). I already gave you the example of C1cada being banned for changing the word "Genocide" to "genocide" and etc. I can say admins regularly refer to the AG article in their assessment of the consensus. I could find one such example here. Although Sandstein is going up against a hardcore denialist here, he still refers to the AG article to evaluate Wikipedia's current consensus regarding the AG. I could find more examples of admins saying this but its been awhile and I'm lazy. I also haven't been editing in the AA2 much lately. Étienne Dolet (talk) 04:11, 7 May 2017 (UTC)
I'm afraid we keep talking past each other. Do you think Bloxham & Göçek argue against culpability of the CUP government? What I've done is track down a strong secondary source which supports your position on that particular point and made an NPOV-based argument to convince myself that I can accept it. The objection I explained in the paragraph starting with "on the other hand" has nothing to do with the use of the word "government" per se, but with suggesting an monolithic view of the Ottoman government before and after the Young Turk takeover carrying out a single program of massacres culminating in genocide. Leading AG scholars like Suny, Bloxham, Kevorkian, not to mention Ottoman historians, are careful not to conflate all these atrocities into an essentialist view of the late Ottoman empire. Doing so for the purposes of assuming a defensive crouch against denialism would not be a NPOV rationale. I also have no idea what you mean by "the extent to which [I] want to change it". The only thing I've proposed in the last response was to take back the lead to the long-standing consensus version which you created yourself, so we can stop worrying about these sensitive turns of phrase and concentrate on fixing glaring problems which call for our attention elsewhere. Eperoton (talk) 05:14, 7 May 2017 (UTC)
Okay, but in the first part of the sentence ("In 1915, as the Russian Caucasus Army continued to advance into eastern Anatolia...) we are given a time frame so its rather obvious which Ottoman government were talking about. And I think the term Ottoman government, though timeless, is still accurate. Correct me if I am wrong but if we are to abide by your standards, then the current Turkish government should not be responsible for this genocide since it was conducted by a different government a long time ago. Hence, that in itself can be another denialist talking point. Étienne Dolet (talk) 05:31, 7 May 2017 (UTC)
I withdrew my objection to your version of that sentence right at the start of my first comment today. I'm only referring to the formulation in the lead now ("Starting before World War I, etc"). I don't believe you would characterize your own earlier version of it as promoting denialism. Going back to it would let us put the matter to rest. Otherwise, we'd have to dig deeper into the criticism of Dadrian's presentation by recent AG scholarship (Suny, Kevorkian, Bloxham). Obviously, they aren't giving a free pass to the current Turkish government. Eperoton (talk) 06:07, 7 May 2017 (UTC)
Ah, I see. I was focused on the second half. As for the lead, I wouldn't say that either version promotes denialism. But I do think "culminating in genocide" is more accurate and precise than simply using the term atrocities. Étienne Dolet (talk) 06:14, 7 May 2017 (UTC)
I have no problem with putting "genocide" in the lead in principle, but I do have a problem with the way I constructed that phrase, because it seems to advance the part of Dadrian's argument which has been revised by recent AG scholarship, so far as I can tell from the historiographical surveys. I don't mind -- also in principle -- continuing to discuss it and trying to find a formulation that reflects current views of AG scholars, who guard against both denialism and essentialism, but I'm afraid this may take us some time. This is why I'm hoping you'll accept your earlier consensus version and let us both go work on other stuff. Eperoton (talk) 06:40, 7 May 2017 (UTC)
Okay, I changed it to fit that earlier consensus version. Let me know what you think. Also, I apologize if I overlooked some of your arguments. Sometimes with big chunks of text to read I begin to glance over things. And by the way, let me know if you need full copies of Kevorkian's book (or other AG related works). I have PDF versions of a lot of them and will happily e-mail them to you. Étienne Dolet (talk) 06:54, 7 May 2017 (UTC)
Thank you, EtienneDolet. Sorry that my language got too heated at times. Any sources you're willing to share would be appreciated. I'm glad this gave me an opportunity to learn more about the subject, but I've obviously only scratched the surface of this literature. I already see something I think I can help with in the AG article (hopefully much less sensitive than the definition!) Eperoton (talk) 13:06, 7 May 2017 (UTC)
After taking a closer look at today's history, I think you may have taken a step too far in trying to address my concerns, so I want to leave another comment here. I don't object to simply using the term "Ottoman government" in a statement which refers to a time span including the atrocities from the Hamidian massacres to the AG. I was objecting to it only in combination with other phrasing which actively nudged the reader towards Dadrian's interpretation of their relationship. So, you didn't need to shorten the time span of that statement to WWI if it was done to address my concerns. I don't advocate for that phrasing. Other editors could object that it suggests avoidance of the word "genocide" and we would be back to arguing about this sentence. You later changed it to the more general "during this time", and I've added a citation for the earlier massacres. Hopefully, we're now on the same page. Eperoton (talk) 18:07, 7 May 2017 (UTC)
@Eperoton: can you please present the wording you'd like to include in the article? That way, I can pinpoint exactly what is being proposed. Étienne Dolet (talk) 19:22, 7 May 2017 (UTC)
Both additions that started this discussion appear to me to be improvements. In the lede I support the replacement of the phrase “major atrocities” by the word “genocide”. The former is a combination of weasel and deceptive piping, given that all three wikilinks for these “major atrocities” actually have the word “genocide” in their titles. For the article body, there are currently serious falsehoods. To have “In 1915, as the Russian Caucasus Army continued to advance into eastern Anatolia” placed in front of the Armenian Genocide content is unacceptable. It is astonishingly blatant editorialising: linking together two unrelated things to imply that the genocide was a result of the Russians invading. (Also, the term “eastern Anatiolia” itself is a revisionist genocide denialist term – nobody then called the Lake Van region “eastern Anatolia” – it was called “Armenia”). The wording “started the deportation” is also entirely unacceptable. The AG began in the Lake Van area in April 1915, and it took the form of massacres. There were NO deportations, none at all. This characteristic was retained when, in the following months, the genocide extended westward to Mush, Bitlis, Siirt, Diyarbekir, etc. IN ALL OF THIS THERE WERE NO DEPORTATIONS. Deportations only occurred in areas much further to the west. Basically, deportations were confined to the more “civilised” areas of the Ottoman Empire, areas that did not have a Muslim population that was willing or able to commit massacres (essentially areas without Kurds or “Circassians”). So the wording “the Ottoman government started the deportation of its ethnic Armenian population” is seriously inaccurate, to the point of being a blatant falsehood. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 19:30, 7 May 2017 (UTC)
@Tiptoethrutheminefield: I too don't want to use the word "major atrocities" and would rather stick to genocide but we don't have an proposal for such a sentence yet. Tiptoe, do you mind offering a proposal of that sentence? Étienne Dolet (talk) 19:35, 7 May 2017 (UTC)
I think the WW1-period content in the lede is at its maximum size - it is currently about 1/4 of the whole lede's content. So it should be something short, like "During the First World War, genocide was committed by the Ottoman authorities against the Empire's Armenians, Assyrians and Pontic Greeks". The earlier wording "Starting before World War I, but growing increasingly common and violent during it..." had the advantage that it alluded to pre-WW1 massacres and atrocities. Perhaps a separate sentence, placed before all the WW1 content, could mention those earlier atrocities. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 19:57, 7 May 2017 (UTC)
That's fine with me. The question now arises whether to include the pre-WW1 massacres in a succinct and precise way. What do you think Eperoton? Should we simply add a small bit of information earlier in the lead on the Hamidian massacres (since those massacres are the most notable)? Étienne Dolet (talk) 20:11, 7 May 2017 (UTC)
I was thinking a succinct mention (of the Hamidian massacres) would also mention massacres of Greeks during the Greek War of Independence, and Bulgarians during later wars, and massacres of other minorities, not all of which were Christian. However, there is currently no article body content on that other material - probably unsurprisingly (the more I read this article the more propagandist it appears, a whitewashing of Ottoman history. "By the time the Ottoman Empire came to an end in 1922, half of the urban population of Turkey was descended from Muslim refugees from Russia who arrived during the course of the 19th century." - complete garbage!). Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 20:29, 7 May 2017 (UTC)
Well, that's what I was thinking. If we are to add all the massacres conducted by the OE in the 19th century, we'd have a lead longer than a Tolstoy novel. So we got to be really conservative here, or just not add any mention of massacres at all. The body should have some material on it for sure though. Étienne Dolet (talk) 20:35, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

Tiptoe, welcome. You were my top candidate for inviting a regular from the AG article to the conversation based on our earlier exchange on the topic. I share the concern about having two separate sentences on atrocities in the lead. I counted 17 sentences in it, which proportionally comes up to about 30 pages per sentence in a 500-page book on the Ottoman empire. I don't mean to diminish the gravity of the Hamidian massacres, but a separate sentence on them seems clearly too much weight for the lead. Since the consensus is swinging towards a strong statement about genocide, I'll just make one terminological note. I initially proposed the phrase "Ottoman authorities" like Tiptoe. As I was paying attention to this point of usage in reading up on recent AG scholarship just now, I realized that the predominant usage in this context is "CUP government", "Young Turk government" or simply the "CUP". Suny, Bloxham, and Gocek make heavy use of these terms. The sample quote that ED provided above had the "the regime of the Committee of Union and Progress". Using "CUP" in the lead would require clarification, but I think this makes a strong NPOV case for using "Young Turk government" in this context.

For the other changes, I understand your concerns, Tiptoe, but I have a request. Like ED, you're clearly knowledgeable about this topic, and can draw on your prior experience with the sources. I'm someone who's just learning about these details, but I'm committed to my -- perhaps quixotic -- quest to be a voice of proportional sourced-based NPOV rationales. I have about a dozen sources I'm consulting on this by now and I'm stretched a bit thin. I hope we can take new developments of this conversation at a measured pace so I have a chance of participating in consensus building. I'd like to review some sources in light of the concerns you raised about the material in the body of the article. If you can also tell me what sources you're drawing on, that would be great. Eperoton (talk) 22:21, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

Actually, upon further examination, I still believe we should be using the word "government" instead of "authorities". I have outlined my reasons above and have not changed my opinion. The sources you are using, Eperoton, are mainly made up of academic works that provide a detailed analysis of the event. We need to just sum up that language for our readers, especially when it concerns the lead. Furthermore, adding CUP, Young Turks, and etc. would be far too detailed for the average user. I'm inclined to use simple language for our readership because few are as knowledgable about the AG or the Young Turks as we are. So that's my main argument against that. If users want to dive deeper into the subject and look into exactly which government enacted a policy of annihilation, they can check out the CUP, AG, or the YT articles. But when it comes this article, that is an article about the OE, it should be simple and more aligned with the subject of this article. Étienne Dolet (talk) 00:13, 8 May 2017 (UTC)
I saw the same pattern of usage when I looked up two quick summaries intended for a general audience. The start Quick Reference page on AG at Oxford Reference: "At the height of World War I, the Young Turk government of the Ottoman Empire..." The start of the Britannica article on AG (by Suny): "Armenian Genocide, campaign of deportation and mass killing conducted against the Armenian subjects of the Ottoman Empire by the Young Turk government during World War I (1914–18)." And indeed, why shouldn't the lead briefly mention the Young Turks? E.g., ""During the First World War, the Young Turk government which had come to power in 1908 committed genocide against..." Eperoton (talk) 00:47, 8 May 2017 (UTC)
By the way, Tiptoethrutheminefield, I'm not sure if you've caught up on this exchange to see that I've withdrawn my objection to replacing "deportation" with "extermination" in that sentence after I looked at additional sources. What I'd like to do now is look more closely into your concern about potential synthesis in its opening clause. Eperoton (talk) 01:16, 8 May 2017 (UTC)
Would the word "elimination" be better than "extermination"? Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 14:45, 11 May 2017 (UTC)
I mean, the lead can still be legible even without adding the term Young Turk or Committee of Union and Progress and etc. And we really don't have to quote word by word what sources say. Readers should be able to understand much of the language that is presented to them in the lead. If the reader wants to dive deeper into the topic, they'll mostly likely click on a Wikilink related to that topic anyways. Étienne Dolet (talk) 05:11, 8 May 2017 (UTC)
There are two different issues getting mixed up here. The first one is simply whether the lead should mention the Young Turks. I think there'a case for noting the rise of the nationalism and the name itself (otherwise there's not even a wikilink to click on). This topic generally gets much more attention in RSs than, e.g., the analysis of why the Ottoman empire entered the war on the side of the Central Powers. However, I think it would be a mistake to discuss that question in this thread, since we would effectively limit participation to the subset of editors here who are willing to argue at length about genocide. The second question is what entity should be identified as the perpetrator of genocide. I have recently come to appreciate the importance of cross-article consensus on key points of definition, so I'm prompted to consult the main articles, which have "the Muslim Ottoman government" (Armenian Genocide), "the Young Turk government" (Assyrian genocide -- the earlier mention of "Ottoman troops" isn't relevant here), and " the government of the Ottoman Empire and the Turkish national movement" (Greek genocide). This indicates a lack of broader consensus about this choice, and the odd emphasis made at AG of repeatedly identifying the largely secularized CUP leadership as "Muslim", which I noticed just now, actually inspires me to bring up that question for a cross-article discussion. Unless a source review on "Ottoman government" vs "Young Turk government" gains some local traction here in the interim, I'll set that question aside until I have time to revisit it with wider participation. In fact, before that I wanted to propose revisiting the paragraph on the role of Islam at AG, which -- also very oddly -- draws on the views of Bat Ye'or, el-Ghusein, and Toynbee instead of a modern historiographical survey. Perhaps you could point me to some prior discussion of these issues at AG to help me understand what I'm getting into here. Eperoton (talk) 12:59, 8 May 2017 (UTC)
Responding to Tiptoethrutheminefield's question on "extermination" vs "elimination": I didn't have a problem with this term in itself, but rather with its combination with the term "Ottoman government". My objection was to the "government" part, since some mainstream sources seemed to say that the extent of involvement of the central government was unclear, but after I took a close look at these and other sources, I decided that this formulation should be given predominant weight. Now my issue is with the word "Ottoman", since it is not the predominant usage in any body of sources and in placing emphasis on "Ottoman" continuity rather than "Young Turk" particularity, it seems to promote a perspective which AG scholarship has largely moved away from. As far as the other word goes, the more common usage in the sources seems to be "destruction". I'm guessing it may have something to do with the strict sense of "extermination", which implies a policy of killing every single Armenian subject in the east and west, and that does not appear to be the general understanding. However, the sheer enormity of the genocide seems to warrant some rhetorical license here. "Elimination" also appears, but less frequently, and I personally find it to be too clinical.
That said, we got bogged down in discussing those particular terms just because those were the portions of text which were destabilized by IP edits when I started watching this page a couple of weeks ago. As it prompted me to review AG and other scholarship, I'm seeing more ways in which our presentation diverges from the body of RSs. I support your removal of the opening clause here, which emphasized one factor not widely accepted as decisive, but now we have a completely decontextualized presentation of the events here. Why does a government suddenly embark on extermination of its subjects? Different AG scholars offer different takes, but there are two themes that recent scholarship has converged on: gradually radicalized nationalism-influenced population policy and a perceived (not actual) threat. Lapidus has a concise synthesis here, and I think by now I have a good idea as to what secondary scholarship this is based on (nothing to do with the "denialist spectrum"). Even clicking on Armenian Genocide won't help the reader, because little of that seems to be reflected there. If fact, in placing the AG at the end of a long narrative arc stretching from the Pact of Umar, to an inflammatory 19th century source apparently cherrypicked with no regard for modern scholarship, through earlier massacres, that article seems to promote an idea that the AG was just another chapter in the immemorial oppression of Christians by Ottomans/Muslims/Turks. These are the bigger issues that concern me here, though frankly I'm increasingly reluctant to approach this subject over a prospect of having week-long discussions of every little modification. Eperoton (talk) 14:45, 12 May 2017 (UTC)
I know what you mean. On the AG article, discussion on whether the Ottoman Empire's Armenians were to be described as "subjects" or as "citizens" went on for weeks! I think here, for this issue, in what is a general article on the Ottoman Empire, it should be "Ottoman state". But maybe exploring a completely different wording could avoid the issue. I think "elimination" is better because elimination was the goal. Elimination also covers Turkey's post-genocide response to Armenians and the Armenian Genocide (they, and the genocide, are eliminated from official history as if they had never existed and it had never happened). Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 19:05, 12 May 2017 (UTC)
I'll try to come with an alternative paragraph for this article that provides a more contextualized presentation. This doesn't seem to be the place to take this discussion into the post-Ottoman period (either from the standpoint of population policy as discussed by Ungor or official historiography as discussed by Gocek) but I think for the big picture here it is important to situate the AG within the broader transformation of Anatolia into a homogenized nation state. I'll let Ungor amplify this point: "The first set of population policies launched were forced assimilation and expulsion, but the outbreak of the First World War radicalized these policies into physical destruction. The genocide of the Armenians developed from this radicalization. But reducing the Armenian genocide to ‘mere’ mass murder would downplay its complexity. The genocide consisted of a set of overlapping processes that geared into each other and together produced an intended and coherent process of destruction. These processes were mass executions, deportations, forced assimilation, destruction of material culture, and the construction of an artificially created famine region. Nor would it be correct to reduce the Armenian genocide to a ‘mere’ destructive process. The genocide heralded the coming of a new era and stipulated the parameters of a formative Turkish nation state [...]" (The Making of Modern Turkey, p. 252) Eperoton (talk) 20:10, 12 May 2017 (UTC)

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Legacy section?

I see a lot of wikipedia pages have a section for the legacy of the subject. Or, I believe I have seen other similar headings for similar sections.

Anyway, my point is, I cannot believe there is not a Single mention of the "Ottoman-style sofa/couch" or sometimes called simply an "Ottoman". Is this another one of those things where we pretend like certain connections don't exist? There's not even an ambiguation link at the top of the page! Enigmato (talk) 22:50, 25 June 2017 (UTC)

THE MAP

The map can not disclude YEMEN, since Yemen Eyalet and Yemen Vilayet has been a part of Ottomans until the end of empire. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.44.9.189 (talk) 21:53, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

The Ottoman Empire lost control of Yemen in 1636 and did not regain it until the 19th century. Chamboz (talk) 22:24, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

It still makes 179 years control, isn't 179 years sufficient to show it on the map ? --92.44.9.189 (talk) 00:21, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

That logic doesn't work on its own. For example, the empire lost Yemen in 1636, but gained Crete in 1645. It held Crete for over 300 years, much longer than it held Yemen. Why should Yemen be privileged over Crete? And we can't use a map that shows both, because they weren't both held at the same time until the 19th century. Chamboz (talk) 00:48, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

Then isn't it better if we use the older map which clearly shows all the territories with their conquest time ? --193.255.135.1 (talk) 16:00, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

The problem is that the older map is full of errors, so the consensus is not to use it. Chamboz (talk) 16:11, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

, This detailed map doesn't look like having errors. Thanks. --92.44.9.189 (talk) 19:04, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

I was referring to a different map which used to be used, this one is somewhat better but still problematic. Just some examples: it gives totally wrong dates for the conquests in Iran and North Africa, shows the coasts of Arabia with the wrong color, doesn't depict direct Ottoman control over the southern cities of the Crimea, wrongly depicts all of Bosnia as Ottoman in 1481, and has numerous other mistakes in Ottoman Hungary. More importantly, it doesn't depict the full extent of the empire to the west and south, leaving out Algeria and Yemen. Ultimately it's just an anachronistic map. No one can look at this map and get an accurate picture of what the empire looked like at any single point in time. The current 1683 map at least gives people a definitive look at what the empire's borders were in a particular year, and doesn't have any errors (to my knowledge). Chamboz (talk) 19:40, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

The map should have all of the once conquered lands. Not just the greatest extend in Europe witch makes it confusing and shows a lot of missing parts in Asia/Middle east. The current new one shows perfectly the times it was once (wheter several year or centuries) conquered and under witch Sultans rule MAMODIVIC (talk) 14:50, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

The current map is better then the one before it. It atleast shows the once captured lands and by witch Sultans. Indeed, there are some innacurate things in it however, till now all maps had innacurate things. I think that there needs to be done more work on the current one like fixing the parts of Podolia and Yemen (as that was captured later again as well). MAMODIVIC (talk) 15:49, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

The Latest Map

The current map clearly has an ulterior motive, Ottomans had control over Yemen, Western Iran, Azerbaijan, Dagestan, parts of Sudan, and the Gulf Arabia which all lacks on the insisted 1683 Map, maybe they all entered under control in different times okay, but it's like showing the Byzantine Empire in 1452 in it's main map, people insisting on changing the map clearly has a hidden agenda, i will be reporting this on wikipedia administrators immediately.--176.232.93.45 (talk) 14:08, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

Found a far more accurate map, please do not change it. Thank you. --176.232.93.45 (talk) 14:14, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

Perhaps we must acknowledge the "4th dimension" known as time. Clearly, there can be no "map of the ottoman empire", or indeed of any empire which changed borders over it's existence... Perhaps a GIF, or some kind of interactive map with the ability to change the date?

In the meantime, a simpler solution would be to simply show more than one map. As I said, there can be no one, single, "THE map of the ottoman empire". Not in a conventional sense, anyway... 

                       ...there Are a few ways to make it work "good enough", if you are for some reason against having: A) multiple maps, one for each territorial gain/loss/both, or B) an interactive map, or C) a gif;

If the border changes are minimal, you can show a single map, using dotted lines as the borders of gained/lost territories, and use a small notation stating the date and whether it was gained or lost territories.

For the Ottoman empire, this may not be the best choice, however... Let's see what else we can think of... I've seen maps that are specifically titled "Map of all the lands that were ever a part of the XXXXXX Empire" , showing, as you may have suspected, all of the territories Ever owned by the empire in question. Then perhaps you might have a map Legend, or some other area off to the side used for helpful and useful information, listing some dates and stuff regarding the conquests and whatnot.

Another option would be to have a map titled "XXXXX Empire in the year ____ (the time when it was at it's largest)", which would show the empire whenever it had the most land. It's understood that this map will not necessarily show every piece of territory ever part of the empire, but is a "snapshot" of the empire at a specific year/date or range of years/dates in which the borders of the empire did not change, and this specific timeframe is understood to be that in which the empire in question held the greatest amount of territory.

There are also a few different ways you can alter this concept. You can have different definitions for "the empire at its greatest". Instead of simply "square mileage of territory owned", you could try "the time at which the empire ruled the most people", since some nations, like the modern Russian Federation, are vast in their territorial exlanse, whereas modern day China, while not nearly as large as Russia, has a much, much greater population. So, which is the greater accomplishment? Conquering the most land? Or the most people?

The empire at the time it had the most territory may not look the same as the empire at the time it had the most people.

Or what about the most resources? They most money, wealth, value? Or the time when the empire, the WHOLE empire, including the common people(its up to you if you include slaves, foreigners, prisoners or other "non-citizens" staying within the borders of the empire), was the most prosperous?

Anyway, If a single map is used rather than a series of maps showing the progression of the empires gains and losses, then, the reason for choosing that map over others should be obvious, or otherwise should be explained in an indirect way via captioning or titling of said map.

Now that I've said my piece, given my two cents, or at least As much of it As I care to give (frankly i feel I've devoted a more than adequate/reasonable/deserved amount of time to this matter), I'll leave it to you fine ladies and gentlemen. Enigmato (talk) 00:39, 26 June 2017 (UTC)

We had this discussion back in October and November last year (by the way, I just realized the archives for this talk page are not in order for some inexplicable reason). Consensus was that having more than one map in the infobox would be too much. The option of having an animated map (which there is precedent for over at Mongol Empire) was also brought up. The end result of the discussion was that the 1683 map currently used was chosen for inclusion in the infobox. TompaDompa (talk) 02:14, 26 June 2017 (UTC)

Ottomans and Turkish identity

IP user(s) from Iran: it seems you still haven't bothered to read the section you're trying to expand. The second paragraph already covers the use of the term Turk. This is the most high-level article about the Ottoman empire. Aside from the redundancy of the added content, expanding on these details here any further is undue. Eperoton (talk) 17:39, 2 July 2017 (UTC)

it is additional info about how ottomans used the term "turk". the current text above my new section says:"The Turkish word for "Ottoman" (Osmanlı) originally referred to the tribal followers of Osman in the fourteenth century, and subsequently came to be used to refer to the empire's military-administrative elite. In contrast, the term "Turk" (Türk) was used to refer to the Anatolian peasant and tribal population, and was seen as a disparaging term when applied to urban, educated individuals." and my text says:"As a sophisticated ruling class, the Ottomans looked down upon the Turkish peasantry, calling them Eşek Turk (the donkey Turk) and Kaba Turk (stupid Turk). Expressions like "Turk-head" and "Turk-person" were contemptuously used by Ottomans when they wanted to denigrate each other." neither redundant nor already covered. 3 legit books and direct quote. what's your problem??? if the new section is your problem, i'll remove it and move the whole paragaraph to above section. and you can't delete it because you don't like it. and remember this is not your article. you don't own it. everyone can edit it. avoid using false edit summaries. good that you have realized your mistake and opened this discussion.nothing is wrong about my addition.188.158.115.255 (talk) 03:36, 3 July 2017 (UTC)
First, please see WP:ONUS. Just because something appears in a book, doesn't mean we have to include it here. You need to convince others that its inclusion improves the article. The section is called "Name" and not "Name calling", and it is about the name of the Ottoman empire. Class consciousness, the range of uses of the word "Turk" by various groups, Turkish identity, and ethnic identity of the Ottoman elites (the non-anachronistic variant of the previous topic) are all different subjects, which belong elsewhere. The relevant part of your addition -- the derogatory connotations and use of the term "Turk" among Ottoman elites -- was already covered, and is redundant. The rest of your addition doesn't reflect how the body of RSs treat the subject of this section; rather, it reflects a Google search for books containing the phrase "donkey Turk", and the inventory of insults cobbled together from them is out of place here. We can include an example, following discussions of the topic in some of the relevant sources, but the rest is plainly undue. Eperoton (talk) 00:25, 4 July 2017 (UTC)
Just chiming in to say that I am in complete agreement with Eperoton here. Chamboz (talk) 05:29, 4 July 2017 (UTC)
sorry but you just try to censor historical facts. you write something in your edit summaries but your edits are something else. 2 edits by you and both of them are misleading. false edit summary in the 1st edit as i explained it, and trying to remove referenced text and replacing it with your own text in the 2nd edit. ottomans used those terms and they didn't identify as turk. i don't read your comments anymore because you are not neutral. my edit should remain in the article. you can edit it but you can't delete/censor/falsify it. ask for the 3rd opinions if you can't deal with it in a neutral way. 94.176.85.70 (talk) 06:11, 4 July 2017 (UTC)
We already have a third opinion from Chamboz above. Again, per WP:ONUS "The onus to achieve consensus for inclusion is on those seeking to include disputed content." Calling others "not neutral" won't convince anyone. Unless you address objections and get consensus, your addition will be removed. Eperoton (talk) 15:24, 4 July 2017 (UTC)
lol chamboz is not a 3rd-opinion because he tried to remove my edits and shares similar goals with you and stop your fake edits.since when we had a consensus or i have accepted your changes? ask some good users to come here. i ignore you due to your biased edits and false edit summaries.as much as i try to improve this article you just try to own it.nor more discussion with you.other editors are welcome.188.158.119.166 (talk) 05:22, 12 July 2017 (UTC)
This article keeps popping up on my recent changes list because of this edit war, still unresolved. Firstly i'm obliged to say that Eperoton's arguments are reasonable and very well put, and in response to them i see mostly ad hominems from the IP editor. His/her original intention was to have a section named "Ottomans and Turkish identity" with this material. AFAIK there is no coverage of this topic in any article and these would be relevant facts to such a topic, but creating a section just to mention them alone, without a proper contextualization, is not even a halfway decent attempt at covering the subject. Therefore, i, also, disagree with the addition of the IP editor in the two ways that have been demonstrated so far.--GroGaBa (talk) 14:10, 12 July 2017 (UTC)

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"Persianate"

Could the anonymous editor, with quotes, explain how his sources support the claim, which he is trying to place at the very top of the lead paragraph, that the Ottoman Empire was "Persianate"? It's one thing to note the existence of certain aspects of Persianate culture in the empire in the appropriate sub-sections, but you're making an extremely generalized claim about the entire empire, across its entire 600-year history, which can very easily give readers a highly misleading impression.Chamboz (talk) 17:10, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

The organization, bureaucracy, hictorical accounts, traditions, poetry, court system of the Ottomans belongs to the Persiante society. Nearly all Ottoman sultans were master in Persian poetry. The official name of the empire, "Devlet-i Aliyye-i Osmaniyye" is in Persian Grammar. Ottoman Empire contributed more to Persian culture than many Iranian dynasties.
So.. no quotes from sources? No historians who refer to the empire as Persianate? Just your interpretation, which seeks to characterize the entire empire unreservedly as Persianate, in the process ignoring all the other cultural influences that existed? Nope, not getting added. Chamboz (talk) 17:49, 19 September 2017 (UTC)
I added the reliable sources. You are free to read it. Also you just asked 3 questions but nothing on facts and sources.
No, it's your job to demonstrate how your sources support the claim you want to make, especially considering the extremely general nature of your claim, and the prominent place you want it to have in the article. Chamboz (talk) 17:57, 19 September 2017 (UTC)
My job is done. I placed the reliable sources in the article. Now your turn! Just read the sources. You act like you own this article. You can't ignore the reliable sources. Please be honest.
That's not how it works and you know it. Just because you've cited sources doesn't mean that everyone else has to take hours out of their lives to locate and read them all if they want to challenge you, otherwise I could write anything I want while citing several hard-to-access books and tell people that they can't challenge me until they've tracked down and read them all. You want to make an inclusion to the article, so you have to justify it. Supposedly you've read these sources, so can you please provide quotations from them demonstrating how they support the claim you want to make. Chamboz (talk) 18:25, 19 September 2017 (UTC)
Please gain consensus here before making such a radical change to the opening sentence of the article. You have added sources, but they are all from a single POV that is not supported in the rest of the article. Per WP:BRD, the burden is on the editor adding new material to gain consensus, and we revert to the status ante during the discussion. Please stop adding content that you know is under dispute and current discussion. Laszlo Panaflex (talk) 22:10, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

@ Mr. IP (194.135.154.224 (talk · contribs)), you need to understand that, no matter whether you're actually right or wrong, edit-warring is never the solution. From what I can see, you initiated it, so please pay attention in the future. Having said that, WP:GF assumed, this matter is taken far too light for a really long time now. Though I concur with Chamboz's revert, the leading culture of the Ottoman Empire, represented by the Ottoman dynasty, was definitely Persianate for centuries. In fact, the whole basis of the empire is shrouded in this particular air. Organization, bureaucracy, poetry, hictorical accounts, traditions, miniatures, court system, the language of the elite/court, are just some points and defining "pillars" that come to mind. This is something that can't overlooked, and a plethora of sources are out there to remember us of that;

  • "The Ottomans, Safawids and Mughals were steeped in the same Persianate-Islamic culture and shared Persian as their common language." -- Wink, Andre. In "India and Indonesia, during the Ancien Regime". Marshall & van Niel, et al. BRILL. p. 50.
  • "(...) and became one of the most influential handbooks of Islamic teachings in the Persianate world, from the Ottoman Empire through Iran, India, and Central Asia." -- The Sage Learning of Liu Zhi: Islamic Thought in Confucian Terms. (2009). Murata et al., Harvard University Asia Center . p. 4
  • "(...) and the attraction of this renaissance of Persian culture under Turkish political hegemony strongly influenced the Ottoman court, with echoes of that influence felt up to the 19th century. --The Encyclopaedia of Islam, Vol. VIII, page 211.
  • "Throughout the 16th century, then, Ottoman literature and culture was still considerably influenced by the Turco-Persian literature flourishing in the courts of Khurasan and Samarkand, while themes from everyday life inevitably crept into them as well; furthermore, Ottoman society, was beginning to be influenced by the West, without being fully aware of it." -- The Encyclopaedia of Islam, Vol VIII, page 214, Gonul Alpay Tekin.
  • "In contrast, the interesting thing about Ottoman written culture is that although Ottoman Turkish was intimately linked with Persian throughout its existence, although Ottoman scribes based their organization and culture on that of Persian scribes, and although Persian literature and documents formed the most important models for those of the Ottomans, the Ottoman written language was not at all stable or unchanging." -- Ottoman Turkish: Written language and Scribal Practice, 13th to 20th Centuries, Linda T. Darling, Literacy in the Persianate World:Writing and the Social Order, ed. Brian Spooner and William L. Hanaway, page 171,
  • "In a way, Ottoman resembled Latin as used in medieval or early modern Europe. It supplanted Persian, which had served as the literary language of the cultured upper classes during the first three centuries of the empire. The style of the poetry also resembled that of Persian." -- M. Sukru Hanioglu, A Brief History of the Late Ottoman Empire, page 35
  • "The bond deepened despite the fact that the foundations of Ottoman society seemed so Asiatic (Turkoman, Persianate, and Arab)."" -- Goffman, Daniel (2002). Cambridge University Press. pp 64-65
  • "However, Persian maintained its position also during the early Ottoman period in the composition of histories, and even Sultan Salim I(r.1512-20), a bitter enemy of Iran and the Shi'ites, wrote poetry in Persian." -- Bertold Spuler, Persian Historiography & Geography, page 68-69.

- LouisAragon (talk) 21:24, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

Oh, I absolutely agree that the (very significant) influence of Persian culture on the Ottomans deserves mention, but this sort of thing is easy to overstate. Persian was a major literary language within the empire, but was never the only such language, and it gave way to Turkish over the course of the 16th century. Ottoman rulers and the elite spoke Turkish, not Persian. Ottoman bureaucracy and administration, while it certainly drew on Persian antecedents to a significant degree, also drew on other antecedents and developed its own synthesis. The situation is not comparable to, say, the Mughal Empire, in which Persian was the primary court language and the language of administration throughout its entire existence. In the Ottoman Empire, the language spoken at court was Turkish and administrative documents were written in Turkish. Persian culture had a major role in Ottoman history, but it should be emphasized in context and not through generalizations, with attention paid to change over time. Chamboz (talk) 23:53, 28 September 2017 (UTC)
@Chamboz: Sorry, had completely forgotten about this talk page section. I agree with basically everything you said. The only point I believe is not entirely correct, is your statement that "Ottoman rulers and the elite spoke Turkish, not Persian". Though Persian was indeed not a majority language of the elite/court, they did speak and use it, at least for a considerable amount of time;
  • "Persian served as a minority prestige language of culture at the largely Turcophone Ottoman court." -- Yarshater, Ehsan, ed. (2012). A history of Persian literature (Vol. X). Chapter; Persian historiography. I.B.Tauris. p. 438
  • "With the rise of the Ottoman state, Persian gave way to Ottoman Turkish as the primary language of the literate classes in Anatolia, and it spread with the conquests into the Balkans. Nonetheless, Persian remained in vogue in the Ottoman court well into the sixteenth century." -- Masters, Bruce. (2013). The Arabs of the Ottoman Empire, 1516–1918: A Social and Cultural History. Cambridge University Press. p. 107
Now, having settled the matter; would you perhaps be willing to propose a line that we could add to the lede, that would summarize the entire thing? - LouisAragon (talk) 14:35, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

"the Empire was able to largely hold its own during the conflict"

Last paragraph of the intro.

It really wasn't, it had been defeated in a series of battles with British Empire forces staring down their gun barrels from Aleppo. It had for all intents and purposes been defeated militarily in WW1. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.150.185.245 (talk) 20:34, 10 November 2017 (UTC)

Request for protection of the article: Ottoman Empire

Ottoman Empire

Semi-protection: High level of IP vandalism. 66.133.78.102 (talk) 13:34, 11 November 2017 (UTC)

Because, to prevents edits from IP editors to validate about Turkey and Muslims.

Requests for page protection should be made at WP:RPP. Eperoton (talk) 16:15, 12 November 2017 (UTC)

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The name of the Ottoman Turkish language removed

Why has the name of the language ("Ottoman Turkish") been removed from the part where the name of the empire in it is given? Is it controversial or what?--Adûnâi (talk) 00:13, 14 February 2018 (UTC)

Flag in the Infobox

I've left the coat of arms in for now because we do not treat coat of arms the same way as far as I know — but we have very specific community guidelines for flags under MOS:FLAG - I wrote the section about the flag in the article, but editors may not know the full history of the flag (first it was green, than it was an eight pointed star in the 18th century, than it was red with a five pointed star) — the infobox box image should have all the flags or there should not be a flag image.

I am open to removing the coat of arms and changing the lede picture and we could try to narrow it down to a few options and start an RfC about this.Seraphim System (talk) 22:26, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

Lede picture

I can make a few suggestions to replace the coat of arms as the lede picture:

Seraphim System (talk) 23:21, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

There is a link underneath the flag which explains when the flag was adopted (1844-1922), there is no reason to have a confusion, I am still a supporter of keeping both the flag and coat of arms. Redman19 (talk) 06:56, 20 April 2018 (UTC)~

The Ottoman Empire never had an official flag until 1844, the green flag was never adopted as a national flag, nationalism is a 19th century concept. Other 19th century empires all have flags. The Ottoman Empire changed its social structure after 1839 and transformed itself from being a medieval state to a nation run along modern lines. If the flag and coat of arms have a link underneath them which explains the issue I don't see a problem in keeping them, I leave it up to you. Redman19 (talk) 07:01, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

I would agree on removing the 1844 flag as it is the same with the 20th-century Turkish flag. Creates the trajectory that Republic of Turkey is the same with Ottoman Empire, as if there was not enough confusion on that matter anyway. Τζερόνυμο (talk) 09:19, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

I agree with Redman19. As long as the captions clarify that the flag/CoA are connected to a specific time in history and also are linked to articles with more info on the subject, there is no confusion. --T*U (talk) 10:30, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

Archives fixed

This article had a rather messed up set of archive pages. There was an original set of manually created archives ranging from "Archive 1" to "Archive 6", covering material from 2003 through 2008. Then a misconfigured bot started filling up these old pages again, adding 2008-2012 material to Archive 1, 2012 material to Archive 2 and so on, until it finally started its first fresh, current page at Archive 7 in 2017. I've sorted this out by page-moving Archive 7 to Archive 10 and copy-pasting the newer additions from the older pages to three new ones, now Archive 7 through 9. Hope this makes it more readable. Fut.Perf. ☼ 20:20, 1 January 2019 (UTC)

English

There are some very poor quality English expressions used in this article. For example, Southeast Europe and during the course of the centuries. There is no such specific place as Southeast Europe and so 1) Southeast should not be capitalised and 2) it should read south-eastern. In the course of means during, so this is a tautology. And I have perused only the beginning!

I am guessing you forgot to read the article Southeast Europe. It is a specific place. Dimadick (talk) 16:39, 10 February 2019 (UTC)

Punishment and reparations

The supporters of the "Ottoman Caliphate" should be punished for the enslavement of Christian people, genocides and constant warfare against the followers of Christ.

The "House of Osman" are guilty of heinous crimes such as rape and murder and must be brought to justice and not advertised as a historical world power...

Hail Chirst...

And God Damn the Ottoman Empire. Fjgdh5 (talk) 18:09, 25 February 2019 (UTC)\Fjgdh5 (talk)\~~

Name of the Empire, Rum?

Is see that one of the editors had added that the Inhabitants and Islamic world called the the Empire ‘’Rum’’ (Roman), which is simpely not true. Sultan Mehmed the second claimed succesion to the Roman Empire after conquering Constantinople and claimed the title of Ceaser (he was the only Sultan that claimed that title). But they didn’t call the Empire itself ‘’Roman’’ or ‘’Rum’’. And definitely not during the 19th and early 20th century. Parts of the Empire were however called different like the Pontus, Constantinople etc... And the term Rum was mostly used during the Seljuk era and Anatolia. Ottomanwarrior12991923 (talk) 14:14, 8 May 2019 (UTC)

If you're referring to the "Name" section, then I don't think you understood what the article says. All your complaints are about things that the article doesn't actually claim. It claims that the urban Turkish-speaking inhabitants of the empire were often called Rumi during the early modern period, not that the empire itself was referred to by that name. Chamboz (talk) 16:41, 8 May 2019 (UTC)
Since the inhabitants of the Byzantine Empire called themselves Roman, and their state was known as Rome, then it was simply country of Roman, something like China as country of Chinese people and Iran as country of Iranian people. It was simply a country, not an empire like the early days of the empire. So the Ottomans only conquered Rome, not an empire, but just another country like China or India and due to this, they were the Romans now. I provided good sources, one of them is in Persian and contains historical texts about the empire. I also should add the empire was called Lumi in Chinese language and after adoption of name Turkey for the new republic, the name of the Turkish language in Persian changed to "Roman Turkic" and it was common name for it until 30s or 40s, but not anymore. Aryzad (talk) 17:35, 8 May 2019 (UTC)

I mean the earlier edit that was done which claimed that the inhabitants called it Rum. I do know that Anatolia at those times was known by that name, but not the whole empire/all of its inhabitants/population. Thats what I mean Ottomanwarrior12991923 (talk) 17:37, 8 May 2019 (UTC)

Partly true. Egyptians were Egyptian and Iraqis were Iraqi, but they were part of the Empire of Rum after all. In the same way they were part of the Empire of Rome centuries earlier. Even you look deeper, you see that's why the Muslims called Anatolia Rum in the first place. Because it was part of the Empire of Romans. Aryzad (talk) 18:29, 8 May 2019 (UTC)

Aryzad, you tried to add the descriptor "historically known to it's inhabitants and the Islamic world as Rome (Rûm)" to the very first line of the article. This is incorrect. "Rum" was the name of a geographic region within the Ottoman Empire, not the name of the empire itself. If you want to pursue this for some reason, you should explain what your cited sources specifically say, preferably with quotes. Chamboz (talk) 16:47, 9 May 2019 (UTC)

Hi. I added it to the first line because obviously it's more important than what the western European called them. Why it's even needed to add what western European called them to the first line? I cant see empire's Hindi name or Chinese name? And for Rum. The sultan of the Ottoman Empire was officially King of Rum, and yes it was a region, but Rome was a region in the Roman Empire too, this is how the empires work after all. For the source, I added an English source which is a good source, and the Persian source (which letter of a Safavid ruler to the Ottoman sultan about their wars and he uses the word Rum few times) can be removed. Aryzad (talk) 18:05, 9 May 2019 (UTC)
Your English source didn't have a page number. Could you quote what, specifically, supports your position from that source? And the problem with the Persian source was not that it wasn't in English, but that it was a primary source. You can't use primary sources for this kind of claim, that would constitute original research. You need to show that your position is supported by modern academic scholars - and I can assure you that it is not. Being ruler of "Rum" was one of the Ottomans' many, many titles, but by no means was it the primary name of the entire empire. Chamboz (talk) 18:48, 9 May 2019 (UTC)
The link of English source opens page 29 of the book.
No, you are wrong. Ruler of Rum wasn't just a title of the sultan. It was "the title" of sultan. As I explained to Ottomanwarrior12991923, late Byzantine wasn't the Roman Empire of first century. It was a country. Like China. In Ottoman and Muslim view, only the ruling dynasty of the country was changed. However, it doesn't even matters. I said it was "known" as Rum, it's not important what was the official name of the empire. Aryzad (talk) 19:23, 9 May 2019 (UTC)
What matters is how you are able to support your position with reference to academic literature. The book you cited doesn't support your claim. On page 29 it simply states that "For the Ottomans, the term [Rum] was used to refer to, among other meanings, the country that they inhabited, Memleket-i Rum (the country of Rum)." This fits very well with what Ottomanwarrior12991923 and I have been saying; Rum was a geographic region within the Ottoman Empire. One more closely tied to Ottoman identity than other regions insofar as it was at the core of the empire, but nevertheless not the name of the empire as a whole. The source that you've cited simply doesn't claim otherwise. Chamboz (talk) 20:51, 9 May 2019 (UTC)
Look my friend, I never said it was the official name of the empire. I said it was known as Rum among Muslims. And the source supports this very well. It contains Timurid view, Muslim view, Iranian view and Mughal view. What else is needed? Aryzad (talk) 21:33, 9 May 2019 (UTC)
It doesn't contain those things. The author cites individual instances of the Ottomans being referred to by those terms by individual writers from those states. To quote the page again: "Nizameddin Şami (fl. 1392), who accompanied Timur in his military campaigns, referred to the Ottomans as Rumiyan, “the heirs of the Romans,” and to the Ottoman ruler as the 'Sultan-ı Rum.'" What this means is that one Timurid writer, in one instance, referred to the Ottomans and the Ottoman ruler by these names. That's all well and good, and maybe these individual instances are representative of a wider phenomenon, but the point is that the author isn't claiming that that's the case. She doesn't say that this was actually the most common or normal way of referring to the Ottomans, that's your own extrapolation, and you can't extrapolate when citing things for Wikipedia. What you need is an author who actually does make a direct claim supporting your position. You're trying to use this author's evidence to support a claim that the author herself did not make. That's not how Wikipedia is supposed to work. Chamboz (talk) 21:49, 9 May 2019 (UTC)
You cited some good points, But I think being called this way by some medieval sources is enough. Aryzad (talk) 22:08, 9 May 2019 (UTC)
I get that, but what I'm saying is that as far as Wikipedia is concerned, it doesn't matter what you (or I) think. Looking at the original sources and coming to a determination based on them is called original research, and you can't make additions to Wikipedia on the basis of original research. In order to be able to add a claim to the article, you need to be able to cite a reliable secondary source that directly makes that claim. Chamboz (talk) 22:13, 9 May 2019 (UTC)
  1. Both sources lack page numbers.
  2. First source is outdated and fails WP:RS
  3. Both sources fail WP:VER
  4. Content added violates WP:OR
So how exactly did this stuff end up in the article? - LouisAragon (talk) 16:29, 17 July 2019 (UTC)
Sources are very clear. Just click on the links. The source says: "The Ottoman Empire is designated by all the of the East at this present time as the Roman Empire." Aryzad (talk) 20:44, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

Today part of section

Hello to all fellow editors. I checked over different empires on wikipedia, many have today part of sections. Can we please reach a consensus on this? Austria Hungary, Kingdom of Armenia, Angevin Empire, Austrian Empire, Ashanti Empire, Aztec empire, Balhae, Kingdom of Benin, Empire of Brazil and more have this, I just looked at these empires, from a list, these were just from A to B. So I can say that dozens more have a today part of section in the infobox. Can we please do the same on this basis? There cannot be any reason not to if it is like this for many other empires. Thank you. Georgepodros (talk) 14:43, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

I haven't really seen discussion in WP:RS. Just because I haven't seen it doesn't mean there aren't any such sources - can you tell us what you had in mind? My concern is that adding such a section would overburden this article. If we were to do it would we ascribe the legacy of the Ottoman Empire to Turkey? Arabs, Armenians, Greeks, Bulgarians on the right wing or nationalist end of the spectrum have also rejected a "common shared past". This is something they had in common with right wing nationalists in Turkey. Thus I have seen very little coherent discussion of this in sources. What we have are mostly "artificial national histories" harkening back to prehistoric times. The issue of Ottoman continuity is, as far as I know, not something scholars have reached an agreement on, and I am not keen on repeating the Turkish nationalist POV about this (which overlaps nicely with other nationalist POVs except for the points where they come into conflict with another). If you have some sources in mind, we would have to see them. Seraphim System (talk) 15:36, 28 November 2018 (UTC)
The last thing I am is a Turkish nationalist. I am Greek. I moved to Turkey as a programmer in the 90s. I simply want this edit because it is very confusing to most when they see what the empire was made up of, these successor states, almost none exist today. So many empires which had far worse nationalistic problems (austria, kingdom of armenia, etc) have a today part of section, most likely because the successor states almost dont exist at all and to understand which lands these empires formed, it is more beneficial to add this section to the infobox. It can be an option "show" where you click on it to see, so only curious people can see it if you are scared of any nationalistic nonsense. I just would like to know myself too what countries really formed the empire. even lands like moravia and a very small part of uganda (conquered by mehmet ali) were de facto under control of the ottoman state. So what do you think in this regards Sir? Georgepodros (talk) 20:10, 28 November 2018 (UTC)
This idea has been discussed before and it was decided not to include it. This is because 1. it does not offer the reader any particularly useful information, and 2. it will be endlessly fought over in edit wars to determine what should and shouldn't be included. It isn't useful to the reader, and in fact can be misleading, to see Uganda or Russia or some other country as having once been part of the Ottoman empire when Ottoman territory only ever covered a small part of the modern state's borders (and as is the case many of these instances, when Ottoman control in these regions was very loose and/or ephemeral). I don't see it as a useful addition and would be opposed to its inclusion. A map is more useful for giving readers a sense of where the borders of the empire used to be. Chamboz (talk) 20:27, 28 November 2018 (UTC)
There used to be such a section (heavily fought over), but it was removed in 2016 after thorough discussions in this article's talk page and in the "Infobox former country" template talk page. --T*U (talk) 20:29, 28 November 2018 (UTC)
I will defer to Chamboz and T*U on this, the explanations given above sound reasonable.Seraphim System (talk) 21:07, 28 November 2018 (UTC)
Very well. I am also a little sceptical about the provisional government part. The empire existed right until the declaration of the republic and the GNAT was considered illegal by the Ottoman State. The sultanate was abolished in 1922 but the state itself was still the Ottoman State. I hope we can reach an agreement to put the Republic of Turkey as the successor state. I can find the proper sources if you wish. [User:Georgepodros|Georgepodros]] (talk) 10:53, 29 November 2018 (UTC)
Turkey is not the successor state. That is it one of the successor states is fairly trivial. I would follow Britannica on this: it was replaced by the Turkish Republic and various successor states in southeastern Europe and the Middle East. There are some isolated articles trying to establish continuity between the present and Neo-Ottomanism, but I don't think these are majority views yet. Given how slowly things move in Ottoman studies, it could be a while.Seraphim System (talk) 14:46, 29 November 2018 (UTC)
Im not claiming Turkey is a successor state, I am saying it is one of them. The GNAT is a rival government during the last years of the Ottoman Empire while the Republic is on of the successor states, as should be mentioned in the infobox. What do you think? Can we or can we not? Georgepodros (talk) 16:22, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

I am concerned by what other editors have said here about the article history about the possible instability that it would cause relative to the benefits of adding it. That Turkey is a successor state is straigtforward, but naming and sourcing the others is not going to be straigtforward. For example, would we include Kuwait? And when listing states in Eastern Europe would we use their names at the time of the dissolution, or their current names? Would the successor state be Mandatory Palestine or Israel? Mesopotamia or Iraq? Seraphim System (talk) 16:47, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

Seraphim System: Again Georgepodros is talking about the contents of the infobox, where there already is a "predecessor/successor" section. It is quite clear that what is meant, is the immediate successor, so definitely no Kuwait! It also means no Israel, and not even Mandatory Palestine, since the direct succesor in that area would be Occupied Enemy Territory Administration, as stated. As I understand Georgepodros, their question is if the Government of the Grand National Assembly should be seen as the immediate successor of OE with Turkey as a next-step succesor (as it now is presented), or if it should be seen as a rival government, in which case Turkey could be seen as the direect succesor of OE. --T*U (talk) 22:02, 29 November 2018 (UTC)
In that case, I think due to the particular needs of this article, maybe we should skip it. I don't think telling readers that the Occupied Enemy Territory Administration was a successor of the OE is going to be helpful. Seraphim System (talk) 22:22, 29 November 2018 (UTC)
All I am saying my fellow editor friends is that the GNAT was not a successor but the rival government of the Ottoman government during the independence war. So yes no kuwait, no israel, they did not exist following the dissolution of the empire. The GNAT or provisional government did not directly succeed the ottoman state, which officially ceased to exist only following the declaration of the republic in october 29 1923. the sultanate being abolished is in no way regarded as the end of the Ottoman State by most historians. May we address this concern? I am no position to argue for the inclusion of all states which exist today which possess land once a part of the empire. I am saying the the provisional government is not the direct successor to the Ottoman state. Georgepodros (talk) 14:18, 30 November 2018 (UTC)

Just saying: the notion of a "successor state" is irrelevant here. The Empire was broken up, and a whole bunch of new things started. In contrast, in 1867, the British Territories in North America became the "Dominion of Canada". That is a successor state. Or Russia became the USSR 1917-22. But the dissolution and fragmentation of an empire is not best described as "succession". Ben 72.141.106.240 (talk) 23:27, 12 August 2019 (UTC)

"Absolute monarchy & Caliphate"

These changes I made were reverted by @Vif12vf:. The caliphal position of the sultans continued during the constitutional monarchy. Moreover, an Ottoman sultan officially gained this title for the first time in 1517. I tried to fix the wrong info through the changes I made. - Aybeg (talk) 07:12, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

To editor Aybeg: You need to bring reliable sources to support your changes. I recommend that you bring them to this talk page first for discussion. Zerotalk 07:48, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

Rome and Rum

@Khirurg: You can also read the Name section of the article, which clearly says Rumi means Roman: "In the early modern period, an educated, urban-dwelling Turkish-speaker who was not a member of the military-administrative class would often refer to himself neither as an Osmanlı nor as a Türk, but rather as a Rūmī (رومى‎), or "Roman", meaning an inhabitant of the territory of the former Byzantine Empire in the Balkans and Anatolia. The term Rūmī was also used to refer to Turkish-speakers by the other Muslim peoples of the empire and beyond." Aryzad (talk) 19:06, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

@Khirurg: What you claim is like claiming that Russia is not actually Russia, it's Rossiya because Russian is not English! Arabic term روم ("Rum") refers the Roman Empire, and that's what the source says: "The Ottoman Empire is designated by all the rest of the East at this present time (late 19th century) as the Roman Empire." Aryzad (talk) 02:30, 9 November 2019 (UTC)

Common vs Official language of Ottoman Empire

  • Titley (1983) The ref doesn't cite page number. But I am not very certain that the Source is RS in context, as it seems that the topic of the book is not language in O.E
  • Wastl-Walter (2011)-->Claims that Persian was adopted by Ottoman Empire as official language of the Empire for some time.

So, the infobox is somewhat misleading as it dichotomizes the Ottoman Empire in two eras (before and after 17th century) and also states that Persian was a common language. Neither of these can be found in the references. The main body of the article though sets the record clear. Cinadon36 06:33, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

I am not sure you would find any source stating any language as "common language".
  • Learning to Read in the Late Ottoman Empire and the Early Turkish Republic, B. Fortna, page 50;"Although in the late Ottoman period Persian was taught in the state schools...."
  • Persian Historiography and Geography, Bertold Spuler, page 68, "On the whole, the circumstance in Turkey took a similar course: in Anatolia, the Persian language had played a significant role as the carrier of civilization.[..]..where it was at time, to some extent, the language of diplomacy...However Persian maintained its position also during the early Ottoman period in the composition of histories and even Sultan Salim I, a bitter enemy of Iran and the Shi'ites, wrote poetry in Persian. Besides some poetical adaptations, the most important historiographical works are: Idris Bidlisi's flowery "Hasht Bihist", or Seven Paradises, begun in 1502 by the request of Sultan Bayazid II and covering the first eight Ottoman rulers.."
  • Picturing History at the Ottoman Court, Emine Fetvacı, page 31, "Persian literature, and belles-lettres in particular, were part of the curriculum: a Persian dictionary, a manual on prose composition; and Sa'dis "Gulistan", on of the classics of Persian poetry, were borrowed. All these title would be appropriate in the religious and cultural eudcation of the newly converted young men.
  • Persian Historiography: History of Persian Literature A, Volume 10, edited by Ehsan Yarshater, Charles Melville, page 437;"...Persian held a privileged place in Ottoman letters. Persian historical literature was first patronized during the reign of Mehmed II and continued unabated until the end of the 16th century.
I would say Persian was used for diplomacy, poetry, historiographical works, literary works and up to the late Ottoman period taught in state schools. It appears Persian was more than common throughout the Ottoman Empire. --Kansas Bear (talk) 07:47, 22 August 2019 (UTC)
@Kansas Bear: it seems we agree on the facts and that is really important. The use of Persian lang was certainly common among literate people. But, given that literate rate was abysmal low in early Ottoman Empire, (per article: about 2–3% until the early 19th century and just about 15% at the end of the 19th century), it would seems that it the claim that Persian was "common" among Turks or the population of O.E is an overstatement. At least, no source claims that the use of persian was widespread among the vast majority. So it looks like a synthesis to me. Nevertheless, thanks for your input and your sources. Cheers. Cinadon36 12:59, 22 August 2019 (UTC)
I adjusted the infobox per the given sources. - LouisAragon (talk) 22:46, 23 August 2019 (UTC)
@LouisAragon: certainly your edit is an improvement but the problem still exist as Persian is listed as common language, which was not. Cinadon36 10:08, 26 August 2019 (UTC)
The sources demonstrate that it was more than commonly used within the Ottoman Empire. - LouisAragon (talk) 11:04, 26 August 2019 (UTC)
Well, that 's not my understanding. The sources demonstrate that it was used by the elite. No source presented in this discussion quantifies the use use of Persian language in Ottoman Empire.(not watching, please {{ping}})Cinadon36 11:29, 26 August 2019 (UTC)
@Cinadon36: What do you mean by "common"? Aryzad (talk) 13:43, 26 August 2019 (UTC)
@Aryzad: By common I understand that something is mainstream and it is relevant to an important portion of the population. There is no specific number to define when something is common or not, but I think that 3-4% is not what we have in mind when we using the word "common". Cinadon36 19:25, 26 August 2019 (UTC)
@Cinadon36: No, this is not how it works. In this situation, we cannot find a common language for the Ottoman Empire, and almost the rest of the empires. Probably, only Greek and Arabic can be called "common" in the Ottoman Empire. And then we also have to remove Ottoman Turkish too, because by this definition, it was even less "common" than Persian. We also have to remove Latin from the Roman Empire, Greek from the Seleucid Empire, Old Persian from the Achaemenid Empire and even English from the British Empire. It wasn't common in the British Raj and most of the British colonies after all. Aryzad (talk) 20:06, 26 August 2019 (UTC)
@Aryzad: Your examples are wrong because Latin and English were definitely commonly spoken in their respective empires. Large parts of the former Roman Empire still speak a language descended from Latin and most of the former British Empire still speaks English. If you want a proper comparison, Greek was the language preferred by elite Romans, not Latin.Swaggernagger (talk) 18:24, 13 November 2019 (UTC)
@Swaggernagger: You cited good points. However, I don't think English was common in non-white colonies (at least in India) during the British Empire. It was language of the elites and government. Aryzad (talk) 18:43, 13 November 2019 (UTC)
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