Talk:Lan Na

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

The result of the move request was: moved. @RJFF: You may also want to consider requesting moves for Category:Lanna and whether Lanna language requires a different spelling. I have moved a couple of related articles that should be uncontroversial. Number 57 11:54, 27 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Lanna → Lan Na – "Lan Na" is the correct transcription according to the Royal Thai General System of Transcription (RTGS) rules, the most established transcription rule for Thai. Lan="one million" and Na="rice field" are two separate words in Thai and are therefore to be spelled separately per RTGS rules. This spelling is also used by many reliable sources, authored by experts on Thai, and especially Northern Thai (i.e. Lan Na), history and/or culture, e.g.:

• Fredrick W. Bunce (2004). Buddhist Textiles of Laos, Lan Na, and the Isan. D.K.
• Susan Conway (2002). Silken Threads Lacquer Thrones: Lan Na Court Textiles. River Books.
• Volker Grabowsky, ed. (1995). Regions and National Integration in Thailand, 1892-1992. Harrassowitz Verlag.
• Foon Ming Liew-Herres; Volker Grabowsky (2008). Lan Na in Chinese historiography. Institute of Asian Studies, Chulalongkorn University.
• Patit Paban Mishra (2010). The History of Thailand. Greenwood.
• Mayoury & Pheuiphanh Ngaosyvathn (1998). Paths to Conflagration. Cornell Southeast Asia Program.
• Sarassawadee Ongsakul (2005). History of Lan Na. Silkworm Books.
• Carol Stratton (2004). Buddhist Sculpture of Northern Thailand. Silkworm Books.
• David K. Wyatt (2003). Thailand: A Short History. Yale University Press.

"Lan Na" is also (in my opinion) a better rendering of the actual pronunciation as both "a"s are long (while "Lanna" wrongly implies a short "a") and the two "n"s are pronounced separately. --Relisted. George Ho (talk) 01:42, 19 January 2015 (UTC) RJFF (talk) 15:33, 11 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Neutral. Either would be fine by me. Haven't looked into the literature, so no comment there. --Paul_012 (talk) 16:31, 17 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Support. Agree with the nominator unless a serious objection is raised. SWH^{® talk} 04:31, 20 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

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

The result of the move request was: No move, no agreement to move after 9 days. Cúchullain ^t/c 13:32, 18 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Lan Na → Lanna Kingdom – I've just found this title change to the article Lanna (which should probably better be Lanna Kingdom. Unfortunately this violates common name / common use throughout the actual region. While certainly there are some English books which translate ล้านนา as "Lan Na" this is not correct in terms of actual usage. Also, in general, the English language use of "Lan Na" was based on early English and French language reference works. Thai RTGS actually followed much of those early historical works (rather than common usage in Thai and Kham Muang). The biggest difference can be found in "Lan Na" vs. "Chiangmai / Chiengmai". Yes, there is a variety of spellings, but if we are dealing with Wikipedia:COMMONNAME it is overwhelmingly Lanna, Chiang Mai, etc., and actually the argument *because New York is not spelled Newyork* is actually a good one, in terms of the reasoning that Common Names are spelled the way they are. Even a basic google of "Lan Na kingdom" vs. "Lanna kingdom" will show a 10-to-1 ratio of "Lanna" vs. "Lan Na". Note that just because there is a different spelling found in some books does not make THAT spelling actually predominant. Note also that there are many "Lanna" things, aka Lanna language, so does everything get renamed throughout Wikipedia? (edited --Jeffmcneill (talk) 05:40, 9 December 2015 (UTC))[reply]

FYI, Thai and also Kam Muang (aka Lanna) languages do not have spacing. They are just as likely to call "Chiang Mai" as "Chiangmai", and via Google we see a 30 million vs. 10 milliion hit difference. However, the Thai people and Thai transcriptions in general are NOT likely to ADD any spaces, except where common English language practice starts to dominate. That is simply not the case with Lanna. The wikipedia article should revert back to the more correct spelling. --Jeffmcneill (talk) 04:43, 8 October 2015 (UTC) (edited --Jeffmcneill (talk) 05:40, 9 December 2015 (UTC))[reply]

• I agree that "Lan Na" is not a very common variant at all. A quick look on Google using the search string "Lanna" + thai shows 1.790.000 results, whereas "Lan Na" + thai only shows 71.600 results. Per WP:COMMONNAME, the title of the article should be changed back to Lanna. - Takeaway (talk) 05:18, 8 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

In addition, Google search shows that "Lanna" in combination with Siam Society gives significantly more results than when "Lan Na" is used: "siam society" + "lanna" shows 12.800 results, whereas "siam society" + "lan na" only gives 1.890 results. - Takeaway (talk) 06:32, 8 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Commment: Given my experience, I've come to deeply distrust Google web result numbers; I'd give much more weight to Ngrams or Google Books results. I'm not arguing against a reversion of the rename; only that I'm not yet seeing convincing evidence.

That said, it should also be noted that WP:COMMONNAME refers to "the name that is most frequently used to refer to the subject in English-language reliable sources" (emphasis mine). So the "common English language practice", as used by reliable sources, is exactly what we need to determine and follow. --Paul_012 (talk) 05:51, 9 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Note: I've taken the liberty to re-format the discussion as a move request. --Paul_012 (talk) 06:08, 9 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• Pingging User:RJFF, who made the original argument for the move to Lan Na. --Paul_012 (talk) 06:27, 9 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose. "Lan Na" is very common in English-language expert literature and I have the impression that most experts on Tai studies and Thai or Lao history seem to prefer "Lan Na" over "Lanna" (e.g. Saraswadee Ongsakul, H. Penth, V. Grabowsky, D.K. Wyatt). The mere number of google books hits does not differentiate between high-quality literature that deals with Lan Na in detail and, say, travel guides or even fiction books that only mention "Lanna" in passing. "Lan Na" follows RTGS transcription rules (Lan="million" and Na="fields" are two words, should therefore be spelled separately). "Lan Na" is closer to the actual pronunciation (most people would instinctively pronounce "Lanna" with a short 'a' while it actually has to be long). And finally, while Lan Na is often labelled as a kingdom, this is a little inaccurate. For most of its history, it was not a unitary kingdom, but rather a loose network of principalities or city-states only linked by common culture, language and personal links between its rulers. I would therefore rather not include the term "kingdom" in the article's title. --RJFF (talk) 17:11, 9 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. The argument "Thai script does not use spaces either" is not very convincing and could easily be turned around and used against the proposal: Thai script never uses spaces between words, but English does, so we have to add them even in places where Thai script does not use them. Else we would get titles like "Tomyamkung", "Kaiphatmetmamuang", "Bhumiboladulyadej", "Phlengchatthai" and so on.

Claiming that RTGS would follow historical English or French works is just plain wrong. It has been developed by Thai linguists and has quite consequent rules on separate vs compound spelling. If a term consists of separable Thai words, it has to be spelled as separate words. Just because Thai script does not use spaces between words, does not meen that the Thai language would not have the concept of separate words. Thais don't think of a sentence as one word just because they write it without spaces (native speakers please correct me if I'm wrong). --RJFF (talk) 17:22, 9 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Strong Support. As per WP:COMMONNAME common being the most common, if we are to use references for English language publications they are overwhelmingly using 'Lanna'. Yes, historical studies do have 'Lan Na', but that is not the common name. RTGS is not consistent, and indeed does 'NOT' require each syllable be separated in a proper name. RTGS is not a great source to determine common name, and it is not consistent. Example, RTGS for Chiang Mai is Chiangmai. But common name in English is obviously Chiang Mai. The opposite holds for Lanna, RTGS is Lan Na, but common name is Lanna. In many cases RTGS is actually not the common name, for various historical reasons. The idea that Thai linguists did not try to harmonize latin alphabet transcription with common practices in latin alphabet languages is historically inaccurate. In any case, it is not an RTGS vs. non-RTGS going on here, but rather what is Common Name, and RTGS does not dictate that actual fact. If one looks at ANY common English resource, e.g., Bangkok Post, one sees a 5x-10x (or more) use of the term 'Lanna' from 'Lan Na'. I appreciate all the antiquarian sources, and I myself read them, but that is just not the common name, and people are looking for 'Lanna' not 'Lan Na' when they search and want to know about 'Lanna' and the 'Lanna Kingdom', the 'Lanna Language', 'Lanna Culture', 'Lanna Food', etc. As someone who has lived the past seven years in Chiang Mai (part of the ancient 'Lanna Kingdom' at times, and a place where 'Lanna' is used daily) the minority spelling just confuses people. At the very least, the title of the page (and of 'Lanna') should be 'Lanna (Lan Na)'. That would cover both bases and help the readers the most. And finally, using Google Books tends to show the older names when there are two or more names or there is a shift to a different spelling (this is discussed in WP:CommonName), and so more recent usage AFTER a name change should help guide either keeping a name change or changing it back or to something different. And for sure, 'Lanna' is on the rise and 'Lan Na' is always an antiquarian alternative spelling. --Jeffmcneill (talk) 03:56, 10 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• RTGS for Chiang Mai is "Chiang Mai". The Department of Provincial Administration has a list of all provinces, districts and subdistricts in their RTGS transcription and it lists Chiang Mai as "Chiang Mai". Indeed, RTGS transcription sometimes uses spaces where the most common spelling does not use them, e.g. "Buri Ram" for Buriram and "Si Sa Ket" for Sisaket, because it spells every word (not syllable: two-syllable words are spelled as one word) separately. Moreover, we never use titles with alternative names in brackets (like your proposal Lanna (Lan Na)), there are hundreds of articles for which different titles exist with sometimes strong ethnically or politically motivated disputes and very heated debates about which of them to use (think of Derry/Londonderry, Burma/Myanmar, Pristina/Prishtina, Kiev/Kyiv, Bolzano/Bozen etc.), yet we always decide for one variant as the article title. Compared to these cases, the Lanna/Lan Na question is not problematic at all, it is just a minor difference in transcription and, luckily, it does not have any political, national or ethnic repercussions. --RJFF (talk) 18:54, 10 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Your claim that "Lan Na" were "an antiquarian alternative spelling" and "Lanna" were "on the rise" is counterfactual. According to google ngrams, the exact opposite is true: "Lan Na" was not used before the 1960s (which is when the RTGS was introduced) and it has overtaken "Lanna" since the 2000s.

Btw, @Jeffmcneill: as the nominator of this move request, you are automatically counted as a supporter, you don't have to "vote" again, and your "support" is just as strong as my "oppose". The move request is not decided by the number, or asserted intensity, of "votes", but by the merit of the arguments – see WP:NOTVOTE. Kind regards, --RJFF (talk) 19:08, 10 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. Lanna is also a girls name, the number of google (or google books) hits for "Lanna" includes an amount of pages that have no relation to the historical Northern Thai region at all. It may be impossible to find out the exact share of hits that use "Lanna" in the sense of this article's subject. Therefore, it is better to go by relevant works of expert literature where we can be sure that they cover our subject rather than a vague number of search engine results. --RJFF (talk) 19:15, 10 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• This has always been a discussion about the "Lanna Kingdom" which is what this article is about. The naming of this article as "Lanna" or "Lan Na" is problematic, and in my opinion everything should go into a disambiguation article first, then out to the different "Lanna" things. Regarding "Lanna Kingdom" and "Lan Na Kingdom", this is a better Ngram to review: [1].

RTGS was originally from 1932, with several revisions thereafter. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jeffmcneill (talk • contribs) 16:31, 11 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• The problem is that Lan Na was not actually a kingdom for most of its history which is why historians specialising in Lan Na's history like Grabowsky, Penth or Sarassawadee avoid the term "Lanna Kingdom" or "Lan Na Kingdom", but simply write "Lan Na". I am strongly against this "Kingdom" part of your proposed title, the question whether "Lan Na" is spelled with or without space is not a big issue in my opinion. --RJFF (talk) 11:06, 14 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• What exactly does a different use of a term (here specifically the Lanna Kingdom) have to do with other uses of that spelling? I'm unclear on this. Placenames and the use of proper (given) names may be related in some way, but not deciding what the Common name of a place is. --Jeffmcneill (talk) 16:24, 11 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• If someone argues with the number of google (or google books) hits of "Lanna" or "Lan Na", they have to bear in mind, that not all hits for "Lanna" refer to this subject, many of them refer to other meanings of the word "Lanna". That's all. --RJFF (talk) 11:06, 14 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Same for "Lan Na" there is no difference here. --Jeffmcneill (talk) 15:10, 18 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Note: I've struck the redundant !vote --Paul_012 (talk) 11:25, 14 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Support Discovered with Google Search that the Siam Society overwhelmingly uses Lanna instead of Lan Na (more or less 7:1). The society itself has no wikipedia article as yet, but its publication, Journal of the Siam Society, does. See the website of the Siam Society for more information, and judge by yourself if this is, or is not, a reliable source on all things Thai -> http://www.siam-society.org/. - Takeaway (talk) 21:16, 10 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Takeaway: Do you support moving to Lanna Kingdom or just Lanna? --RJFF (talk) 11:06, 14 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose — User:Jeffmcneill didn't seemed to be knowledgeable enough in the Thai language as he made no references to any sources in Thai. Therefore, it's best that he leave the discussions to those who are actually knowledgeable enough. OTOH, while User:Takeaway's point is valid, I would oppose the practise of starting this kind of name change proposals, in order to avoid unnecessary edit wars. Cédric ^{SAYS NO to anti-diacritic crusades!} 00:30, 14 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Since this is the English Wikipedia, and according to WP:USEENGLISH, the arguments regarding Thai language usage should carry little weight here anyway. --Paul_012 (talk) 11:14, 14 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    • All credible English transliterations of Thai names have to be made by those who are sufficiently knowledgeable in Thai. That's the premise of WP:USEENGLISH. Transliterations made by the unknowledgeable would only make things messier than the Messier 24. Cédric ^{SAYS NO to anti-diacritic crusades!} 18:21, 14 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
      • But we're not supposed to make up our own transliteration/romanisation of the name. What we're supposed to do is determine what the established usage in English-language sources is, and if there is no established usage, which appears to be more common. --Paul_012 (talk) 05:11, 15 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
        • How do those, who can't even understand Thai, determine which transliteration(s) in which English-language source(s) is the most credible one(s)? Finding excuses for not being sufficiently knowledgeable (instead of digging deeper, which is what serious scholars do) while using "It's not up to Wikipedia to 'right great wrongs'" as an omnibus shield is nothing less than a plague. Cédric ^{SAYS NO to anti-diacritic crusades!} 06:08, 15 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
          • Disparagement of my knowledge of Thai (without any actual evidence or knowledge of what it is) is pretty much a bad faith claim and ad hominem attack. Let's stick with what this name change is actually about, which is COMMON NAME in ENGLISH. The idea that somehow I am disqualified from discussing this is absurd. --Jeffmcneill (talk) 15:09, 18 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment: Given RJFF"s above comments, perhaps we should focus more on whether or not to include the term kingdom in the title? I'd point out that the Lan Xang article doesn't include it, although Sukhothai Kingdom, Ayutthaya Kingdom, Thonburi Kingdom and Rattanakosin Kingdom all do. However, these kingdoms share their names with their respective capitals, so inclusion of kingdom is necessary for disambiguation purposes; the same is not the case for Lanna/Lan Na. --Paul_012 (talk) 11:36, 14 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm strongly against removing kingdom just for the sake of removing it, especially now that there's Lanna Language. Cédric ^{SAYS NO to anti-diacritic crusades!} 06:08, 15 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    • @Cedric tsan cantonais: It is not to be removed "just for the sake of removing it". The point is that "kingdom" is not an accurate term for what Lan Na was (at least for most of its history): a loose network of principalities or city states linked by common culture, language and personal relation of their rulers, but without common political institutions or administration. One of the rulers was usually regarded as a primus inter pares and nominally had a leading role (and may therefore be termed "king") but had no right to interfere in the internal matters of the other princely states. This is very much unlike the typical image of a "kingdom", which is why most historians specialising in Tai history avoid the term "kingdom" when dealing with Lan Na. --RJFF (talk) 17:08, 16 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
      • This is not about historian, antiquarian terms, this is an Encyclopedia for all and the whole basis of COMMON NAME should in fact clearly dictate the return to the rightful name. Appending 'Kingdom' -- which is in fact what this article is actually about, not some generic term of Lanna (loose confederation of whatever). This argument that Kingdom is somehow not accurate applies to a myriad of Kingdoms, and regardless that is the term that people use. People use, most commonly, in English, the term Lanna Kingdom. The idea that this is wrong, in some narrow, antiquarian and historical way, though of course correct in its narrow way, should never overrule the basic concepts used to name articles. Simply add that information in the first paragraph of the article. The fact that so-called expert and experienced wikipedians contravene their own rules just because they can argue opposite rules, is the real travesty here. --Jeffmcneill (talk) 15:16, 18 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
      • @RJFF: Fair enough. Cédric ^{SAYS NO to anti-diacritic crusades!} 20:40, 16 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• Strong Disagree unless New York is changed to Newyork —Pawyilee (talk) 12:12, 14 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.