Talk:Zurich

Name

In the Name section of the article, we currently read, "In English, the name used to be written as Zurich, without the umlaut. Even so, standard English practice for German names is to either preserve the umlaut or replace it with the base letter followed by e (i.e. Zuerich)." This assertion is incorrect on two counts:
1. The default English spelling of the city is still Zurich with no umlaut, as evidenced by Google's counting: Zürich shows 135,000,000 results, while Zurich shows 488,000,000 results.
2. Standard English practice for German names is NOT "to either preserve the umlaut or replace it with the base letter followed by e". Dusseldorf is the normal English version of Düsseldorf, just as Zurich is normal English for Zürich. --Michael Bateman (talk) 21:05, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

I completely agree with you. Zurich is clearly still predominantly spelled "Zurich" in English. I'd love to have a re-vote on moving this article (and all the rest with Zurich in the name) back to "Zurich". What do you think? — tooki (talk) 17:04, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

Agreed, Swiss people spell it "Zürich" and pronounce it [ˈtsyːrɪç] if they're speaking German, but the spell it "Zurich" and pronounce it [zyʁik] if they're speaking French. No one would argue that "Zürich" is the proper spelling the French, "Zurich" is just the French language name. "Zurich" in English is loaned from French and the English pronunciation /ˈzjʊərɪk/ is an approximation of the French pronunciation, with a velar plosive at the end. Arguing that be should use the German spelling makes no sense unless you're also arguing that we should use the German pronunciation. Queewe (talk) 16:12, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

As a native speaker of English and a second-language speaker of German, I completely agree with Michael Bateman and tooki. Check any English-language news source and you will find "Zurich", not "Zürich". This issue needs a re-vote. SRamzy (talk) 15:38, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

I am also sceptical of the claim that Daniel Jones (1997) says that the name is more recently pronounced with initial "ts", as in German. More likely, this last clause was inserted and misrepresents what Jones says. The only pronunciation I have heard IN ENGLISH is /zurɪk/. However, it´s likely that RP speakers would use initial /zj/. SRamzy (talk) 17:23, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

I'm tempted to open a move request, which I will do unless there is a discussion about the name --Spekkios (talk) 20:36, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

Before you do. Spekkios, please read through all of the move discussions linked in the header right above this section, and browse through the archives for other discussions not linked. — JohnFromPinckney (talk / edits) 21:01, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

Absolutely should be moved, and yes, I've read the arguments. In English Wikipedia, the native "Roma" is listed as "Rome", "München" listed as "Munich", so why make an exception here? "Zurich" is absolutely the predominant spelling in the English language. Ebab (talk) 12:06, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

Just nodding towards the lengthy discussion from a few years ago you'll find below this post. People have talked their mouths raw about this, and it really doesn't matter one way or the other. Trigaranus (talk) 20:10, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

Except for Wikipedia, I never see it spelled any way except Zurich. Fyunck(click) (talk) 07:16, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

Yep. It remains mind-boggling to me, as a native English speaker living in Zurich, that a) this was ever up for debate, b) the wrong side won, and c) that we can’t get it fixed. In real-world practice, there is absolutely no question that the no-umlaut version is what is normally used in English. — tooki (talk) 18:53, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

Spelling without umlauts removed from lead

Hello,

It has been established in the numerous move discussions that the spelling "Zurich" is also used in English, some say "traditionally", others say "more commonly".

The alternative spelling was removed from the lead by an unregistered editor in February 2020 although the two spellings had been present in the lead since 2005. You could argue that "Zuerich" should be present as well, but looking at the Ngram results here, "Zurich" is more widely used.

Like Bern, I think both spellings should be present in the lead as their absence seems to confuse some editors: [1][2][3][4][5][6].

If you need citations, there's a long list here compiled by User:MadGeographer.

Thanks. Thibaut (talk) 17:27, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

Requested move 3 June 2024

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

The result of the move request was: moved. Clear consensus to move per WP:COMMONNAME, with the supporting !votes double those opposing. There was evidence both forms are used in English, but the supporters were able to support their case with multiple sources, including government and official web sites. Opposers only provided a link to Britannica. I didn't find particularly relevant how the city is pronounced (only how is written matters for this discussion) or how other cities are spelled. Also, some comments were more of a rant than a reasoned argument, so they were discounted accordingly. (closed by non-admin page mover) Vpab15 (talk) 09:21, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

---

Zürich → Zurich – Zurich appears to be the name most commonly used in English-language sources, including by the city itself[7], Zurich Airport[8], Swiss Railways[9], airline Swiss[10], and Zurich local transport network[11]. I agree that there are some English-language sources that spell it Zürich, but they are either those that consistently prefer localised spelling (Düsseldorf, Łódź, or Hồ Chí Minh City; BBC and Britannica often fall here), or those that follow Wikipedia. Yet, non-umlauted spelling, even if not universal, appears to be the English norm. — kashmīrī ^TALK 06:35, 3 June 2024 (UTC) — Relisting. Polyamorph (talk) 08:45, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

• Support per WP:ENGLISHTITLE. Zürich is German, even if sometimes used in English-language writing. Umlauts are not used in English and are not universally understood by English speakers. Station1 (talk) 04:57, 4 June 2024 (UTC)
• Support per my !vote in the 2021 RM. BilledMammal (talk) 05:07, 4 June 2024 (UTC)
• Comment The nominator should write what exactly has changed since the 2021 RM. Otherwise, there is no point in repeating the same discussion. FromCzech (talk) 05:39, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

  Three years on from a no consensus close it can be appropriate to revisit the question, even absent any dramatic change in circumstances. BilledMammal (talk) 05:48, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

• Support per nominator. Killuminator (talk) 07:59, 4 June 2024 (UTC)
• Support. Other than Wikipedia, it's fairly uncommon to see it spelled in English any other way than Zurich. Fyunck(click) (talk) 09:20, 4 June 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose. Nothing has changed since the previous RMs. It's certainly not true that Zürich is not commonly seen in English-language sources. Comments that "Umlauts are not used in English" are utterly irrelevant (and also not entirely true). Omitting the accents in foreign names is no more than ignorance and a holdover from the days when we used typewriters and they had to be written in by hand. No excuse for it now. Yes, it's true that official websites often omit them; they do it because they think we English-speakers are ignorant, parochial idiots who can't handle foreign languages. Proposals like this just show that they're right. -- Necrothesp (talk) 10:19, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

  I'm not convinced it's technical limitation, as the city is still not pronounced [ˈtsyːrɪç]. Rather, Zurich is an anglicised spelling, more akin to Copenhagen (original: København), Vienna (Wien), Rome (Roma) or Cracow (Kraków). So, my feeling is that there's no "right" and "wrong" form – there's the German form and there's the (more popular in English sources) anglicised form, and we need to chose between the two. — kashmīrī ^TALK 18:46, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

  "they do it because they think we English-speakers are ignorant, parochial idiots who can't handle foreign languages." Where do you get off thinking that? They could do it because English so rarely uses or teaches it. They could do it because of technical reasons. They could do it because they want to do it. We don't know what's in their minds and to say otherwise is balderdash. What you are saying is conjecture and those who blindly agree are simply agreeing with what you are making up. Fyunck(click) (talk) 20:18, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

  Okay, whatever you think. I take leave to disagree and stick to my original hypothesis that they're pandering to ignorant English-speakers because they know how dumb, parochial and unwilling to engage with foreign languages so many of us sadly are. I speak, incidentally, as somebody who (to my shame) only speaks English but who is perfectly capable of reading, writing and understanding names in foreign languages without them being stripped of anything that looks difficult (and wouldn't dream of writing the name of this city without an umlaut). -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:54, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose. Per Necrothesp. Alex2006 (talk) 13:53, 4 June 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose. This has been debated to death with repeated RMs over the decades. We have chosen how we choose to write the name and we should stick with it. And I agree with Necrothesp. -- chris_j_wood (talk) 15:04, 4 June 2024 (UTC)
• Support, Ngrams supports it and all I see from opposition is opinions. Likely the non-umlauted form is the WP:COMMONNAME used by even the Swiss themselves (in English). DankJae 18:33, 4 June 2024 (UTC)
• Support as a Zürcher myself, I've never seen the umlaut spelling in English publication. Plus the name of the city is not pronounced with the umlaut sound in English. One should see "Zurich" as the English translation it is, not just a typographical mistake. Broc (talk) 19:04, 4 June 2024 (UTC)
• Support. Under WP:COMMONNAME, we go with the common name in English. That's why the article title for a certain Italian city is Florence, not Firenze, and the article title for Mexico's capital city is Mexico City, not Ciudad de México. --Coolcaesar (talk) 15:02, 5 June 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose. It seems to be "Why not move this article to 'Zurich' season" again. It's giving me a a mixture of whiplash and déja-vu (note the diacritics), but it's definitely ad nauseam. "Zurich" without the articles is a brand name recognised the world over. It's an insurance company. If I walk through the pedestrian zone in Cardiff and I see a big sign reading "Zurich", it's not that someone was very bad at geography. The city is called "Zürich", and the fact that English speakers struggle to pronounce both the "ü" and the "ch" does not make the version missing the diacritics "the English name" of it. It's like claiming that pronouncing Edinburgh like a doofus is making it "the German name" of Edinburgh. "Zürich/Zürich" is not even remotely on the same level as "Ciudad de México", or "Firenze" or "München", for that matter. It's the same damn name (with a dollop of jingo on top of it covering up the trema). But what I don't get, what really gets my goat, is why any editor would feel the need to re-start this debate here all over again. It's been had time and time again. Is it a good use of everyone's time? I doubt it. And the crazy thing about it is: This is an online encyclopaedia. It works with redirects. You won't even get to see the lemma it redirects you from. Do you type in "Zürich"? Do you type in "Zurich"? Hmm... There's not even a hint of a different outcome to the user! Not a shred. It simply does not matter whether the article is hosted under "Zürich" or "Zurich" -- except for the whole thing that "Zurich" is a damned brand name and the other is the name of the place! So what is the tedious bloody point that we're back to square one, doing this - again? Trigaranus (talk) 16:08, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

  Bad rationale. That I can see in Cardiff a big sign reading "Iceland", referring certainly to Iceland (supermarket), is no reason to spell the English article about the country as Ísland. See, Wikipedia has robust mechanisms to tackle ambiguous terms, e.g., through hatnotes, disambuguation pages, parenthetical disambiguation etc.

  "Zurich" is the anglicised name of what the Swiss Germans call Zürich – much like "Iceland" is the anglicised spelling for what the Icelanders call Ísland, and "Copenhagen" for the Danish place København; contrary to your argument, it's not a typographical shortcut. Whether we use original or anglicised spelling for a given placename is an editorial decision that should be based on the quality sources, and not on an editor's musings about Cardiff signs. — kashmīrī ^TALK 08:07, 15 June 2024 (UTC)

• Support per the above comments. Zurich, without the umlauts, is the clear common name in the English language. There's nothing wrong with revisiting the matter three years after the most recent request move. ~~ Jessintime (talk) 16:24, 5 June 2024 (UTC)
• Weak support per all other arguments, whether who are supporters or opposers. Given that things are changed since the last 2021 RM, Zurich (without umlaut) is indeed the most common name for most people, regardless whether they're English speakers or not (except of course for German ones who has the umlaut as part of their alphabet) and whether they lean to the official website to tell about the city. However, if someone decided to Oppose the move by grounds that "Zürich" with umlaut still carried long-term significance (example for a opposer argument), we must ensure that all articles with named "Zurich" except for the insurance companies need to be consistent with the main article title Zürich (including Zurich Protocols that sadly decided no to moved at 2021 RM). Remember, when the main article had "Zurich" (without umlaut) as the main title, all articles named "Zürich" must be consistent with that main article title "Zurich", so are "Zürich". 103.111.100.82 (talk) 02:06, 6 June 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose per Necrothesp and Trigaranus. Nothing has changed since the last RM. Omitting the diacritics does not make the name an English name, it's just a simplified notation of the same name. In promotional materials and tourist guides there may or may not be diacritics; but it should be in the encyclopedia. FromCzech (talk) 15:37, 7 June 2024 (UTC)
• Support per Ngram statistics –Tobias (talk) 13:53, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

  Ngram ends in 2019, so it's useless to determine what has changed since 2021. Even so, it shows the trend in the 21st century to use diacritics more. In any case, Ngram is not a relevant source, because "Zurich" also includes sources that ignore diacritics in general and not only for this city. FromCzech (talk) 18:44, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

  Nevertheless, the trend is crystal clear. –Tobias (talk) 19:20, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

• Support - per Tobiasi0 and WP:ENGLISHTITLE. Alexeyevitch^(talk) 21:22, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose mostly per Trigaranus, also in Switzerland Zurich is arguably better known as the name for the Zurich Insurance Group than for the city. Nobody (talk) 06:24, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose, umlaut also often used in English spelling.--Ortizesp (talk) 13:41, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

  Where and how? I've never seen any anglicized word with an umlaut. –Tobias (talk) 13:56, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

• Support, per WP:COMMONNAME/WP:ENGLISHNAME and Ngram results (English corpus, 1800-2019), see also this long list here compiled by User:MadGeographer. As a Swiss myself, I’ve never seen umlauts on Zurich’s name in English-language media or publications, whether from Switzerland or abroad. --Thibaut (talk) 15:15, 13 June 2024 (UTC)
• Support - Zurich is by far, as already said enough, the most common form used in English. Zürich is the local name.

For me there's no discussion about that. Otherwise we should change Mexico to México, Rome to Roma and so on. There's no need to always use the local language no matter what. ~ Well203 (talk) 06:17, 15 June 2024 (UTC)

• Comment I remind that this is a search for consensus and not a vote. There is still no concrete evidence that Zurich without diacritics is the predominant name in comtemporary sources that usually use diacritics, such as Britannica. Sources that do not use all diacritics, such as those included in Ngram, are irrelevant to this debate. The omission of diacritics would have to significantly prevail, otherwise the move is not in accordance with Wikipedia practices (the omission of diacritics for geographical names is a rarity). Btw. the comparison with Rome/Roma, Ciudad de México/Mexico City, etc., where these are two different names and not the omission of diacritics, is misleading. FromCzech (talk) 06:52, 15 June 2024 (UTC)

  Where do you get off with that crapola? I've seen hundreds of these types of discussions and nothing is irrelevant. There is no consensus to keep it at a name that is used less in English per sources.... and you can't show that Zürich is used more often. I've seen these discussions that are stuck on one spelling, because these polls here only muster 55% for change over and over again, actually get changed to the new title. Why? Because it was sitting long enough at a spelling that was only garnering 45%. It was time for a change at that's how the closer saw it. How most sources spell Zurich in English is all we should be looking at, not why they are spelling it the way they do, and you posting this is simply a way to elbow the closer into doing your bidding. Fyunck(click) (talk) 07:53, 15 June 2024 (UTC)

  I was referring to the country of Mexico, not the city. if Zürich is to be considered preferrable over Zurich I don't see why Mexico shouldn't be changed to México Well203 (talk) 10:40, 15 June 2024 (UTC)

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

You talked the talk and got the move - isn't it time you walked the walk

@Kashmiri:, @Station1:, @BilledMammal:, @Killuminator:, @Fyunck(click):, @DankJae:, @Broc:, @Coolcaesar:, @Jessintime:, @Tobiasi0:, @Alexeyevitch:, @Thibaut120094:, @Well203::

We changed the article name over a week ago, yet almost all the usage of the city name within the article is still spelled with an umlaut. This is untidy, messy and a much worse situation than we had before the move. Come on people, if you proposed or supported the move, then you should be fixing this. -- chris_j_wood (talk) 15:14, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

I'm not seeing that this was a stipulation of the move. Seasider53 (talk) 16:29, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

It's true that the items within should match the title, and it is slow in changing, however you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. The tone of this post is pretty snotty and guess what, it's the responsibility of everyone, which includes editor "Chris j wood". I don't see your help here when chastising others. Fyunck(click) (talk) 18:46, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

@Chris j wood: Your ping did not work, at least in my case. Not sure why. (Saw this only because page is still on my watchlist). Station1 (talk) 06:19, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

@Station1: His ping didn't work because it must be part of the original post with signature. He wrote the post over four edits and added the pings on edit number 2. Fyunck(click) (talk) 06:42, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

Apologies, I didn't know about that limitation (bug?). Noted for future reference. -- chris_j_wood (talk) 17:12, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

To be honest this move request dragged on so long I forgot about it. I've started making some of the changes. ~~ Jessintime (talk) 15:07, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

I was able to go through the entire, but someone else should probably check to make sure I didn't miss any. There are still a number of articles whose titles are spelled with the umlaut, and those I did not change for now. ~~ Jessintime (talk) 17:59, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

I've just done plenty. — kashmīrī ^TALK 23:25, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

Very nice. @Chris j wood hasn't made a non-talk page edit on Wikipedia since June 19, so if we can all edit the rest of Wikipedia to help him out, he would appreciate it. Seasider53 (talk) 02:34, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

Thank you. I think I have done my fair share of editing on WP over the last two decades. In fact I fixed the spelling of Zurich/Zürich up in the article after both the last two times we changed our mind on this, which gets a bit galling after a while. I don't think it is unreasonable to ask somebody else to shoulder that burden this time, especially those who supported changing it yet again (I didn't). Also I'm not entirely sure why you think this was aimed at you; you are not in the users I called out. -- chris_j_wood (talk) 17:03, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

Thanks -- chris_j_wood (talk) 17:09, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

Thanks -- chris_j_wood (talk) 17:07, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

FWIW, I edited around 50 Zurich-related articles today to reflect the no-umlaut spelling. I moved a small number of articles, too, but many more already have redirects under the no-umlaut spelling, and I am not skilled in doing page swaps so I left them be (but did update the page contents).— tooki (talk) 18:16, 18 October 2024 (UTC)