Forums:English vs. Tolkien language entries

Tolkien Gateway > Council > English vs. Tolkien language entries

Many objects in Tolkien's legendarium have only two names, one in English and another in one of Tolkien's languages, e.g. Misty Mountains in English and Hithaeglir in Sindarin. Some of these are obvious choices for redirects. My question is, should we redirect to the English page or the Sindarin/Adûnaic/etc. page? In other words, should the title of the article be "Misty Mountains" or "Hithaeglir"? --Ebakunin 23:08, 13 May 2006 (EDT)

This seems to be the popular topic (as it is one of the most important). Personally, I think choosing the term which is used the most in Tolkien's legendarium is the most effective approach. Unfortunately this would mean Aragorn II would be changed to simply Aragorn, and Boromir son of Denethor II to Boromir, etc. So maybe we need another rule which states birth names override most used, or something similar. In the case of Misty Mountains and Hithaeglir I would say the main article should be placed into Misty Mountains since it is the most common term, while Hithaeglir contains a link to Misty Mountains as well as a history of how the word is derived, what it means, etc. But that's just me.

As before, I plead for as little redirecting as possible. In my mind, "Hithaeglir" and "Misty Mountains" are separate things and therefore deserve separate articles. I think we should only use redirects in cases of singular vs. plural entries (Orc vs. Orcs), unaccented vs. accented entries (Numenor vs. Númenor), and the like. --Earendilyon 07:32, 14 May 2006 (EDT)

The problem of multiple character names seems to have been solved with the disambiguation tags. If you go to Aragorn you will see all the relevant entries, with the link to Aragorn II in bold since he is a major character. I'm referring mostly to places and objects, which is why I mentioned the Misty Mountains. My take is that redirects should be used whenever two entries would have the same information. Since Hithaeglir is "Misty Mountains" in Sindarin, and there is no other difference between the two, why not redirect? This way editors only have to worry about updating a single entry, as opposed to every duplicate entry. To keep the site manageable, we need to keep it simple.

I also agree that we should redirect to the English entries. Once again, it makes searching easier for the casual reader as opposed to the Tolkien expert. --Ebakunin 12:42, 14 May 2006 (EDT)

But shouln't an Encyclopedia by extensive and exhaustive? I mean, the Gateway is not only for the casual reader, but also for the expert. Besides, an 'casual reader' would probably not even search for "Hithaeglir" anyway, but only for the "Misty Mountains". An 'expert' would be, IMHO, disappointed when (s)he was redirected to an article (s)he wasn't initially looking for. --Earendilyon 15:05, 14 May 2006 (EDT)