Name change requests of Arabic coins

Okay, I know there's some of us who dislikes the name change of (more or less) all the Arabic coins to some modified translitterated bersion of the Arabic name, such as Dinar now is called Dīnār and the plural form Dinars has become Darāham.

Personlay I reckon this is wrong and would like to fight back! I know, and understand, that most of these countries (especially north African countries) have een struggling against the French (not just physically, but also on the language level) and would like to have their own names of their own coins. Fair enough, I guess. But, we must draw a line somewhere! If not just because to make it similar to the catalogs, but also to make it easier to search for the coins, and easier for the new collectors who thought they had a 10 Dinars, but all of a sudden it's a 10 Daraham, and they can't find it in Krause.

So, I have begun to fight back, but with respect. I have added the English or French name to the coin names as well (like Darāham / Dinars). Also all the santīm and santīmā and all the other have the additional "/ centimes" and all the mallīmāt, mallīmā etc. have the additional "/millièmes", since these are the names that are usually used. The dīnār is simply changed to dinar. During the time I'm hoping that the translitterated versions will disappear.

Unfortunately I am not a moderate of any of these countries, so I am simply hoping that the moderator will approve these changes. If anyone want to fight with me, I am adding a picture displaying which coins I've done a request for so far (so that there won't be any double or tripple requests for the same coin).

I could take some time to change them country per country, but it might go faster with help from others. If possible I wouldn't mind to be a moderator for any of the north African countries, which would make the changes go much faster.

It would also be interesting to hear if any of you disapproves these kid of changes. Please let me know by commenting here, and please make me know why you'd like to have it at it is.

Also, anyone who approves, please let me know. It's always good to know that people are appreciates what you are doing.

Well, it seems like I can't add pictures...?

Anyway, I started off with the coins I have myself of Egypt, Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia.

I think someone already tried something similar with Ireland without success.

To answer your question, yes I approve wholeheartedly of the attempt to restore the earlier, common sense translations. The guidelines are quite clear - an English translation is to be used. Period.

However it seems futile to spend a lot of time and effort cleaning up someone else's act of vandalism until we have identified who is doing it. It would seem most likely that it's a member of the admin team who is responsible as they can make the changes without approval. They can undo your changes far quicker than you can make them. I don't think it can be fixed by any one member, it's a matter for Xavier to address.

Until we know exactly who is responsible and have a cast iron assurance that he or she is going to be prevented from such destructive acts in future it seems wisest to simply not use the Islamic part of the database and stick to those countries which are still useable.

This problem has been going on for a long time and any attempts to fix it have been met with indifference or an arrogant smugness.

Good luck.

I love linguistics so I do like to see the literal Arab transcriptions next to the English names.

And now we are at it, Finnish Penni can become Penny and Markka Mark.

Solution: change the titles to English, but when you hover your mouse over them, the original Arabic and a phonetic transliteration of the original Arabic appear.

Citeer: "jokinen"​I love linguistics so I do like to see the literal Arab transcriptions next to the English names.
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​And now we are at it, Finnish Penni can become Penny and Markka Mark.

​Me too and I totally agree! The changes I've made would look like this (if approved): 10 Darāham / Dirhams. This will make it more searchable, and when exporting to Excel you can choose to keep both, or delete the Arabic transliterated name, since the ā will look like a burned house.

To change the Finnish Markka to Mark have no use, nor changing Penni and Penniä to Penny/Pence, since it's something ẽlse.

Look at Krause and make it similar, then everyone e will find their coins and will be able to identify it. No need for changing ALL currencies to English. Swedish krona is krona, not crown (even though it could be in spoken language, it's not correct in written).

Well, David (daTo) rejected my change requests for Egypt and Algeria, stating that he couldn't tdo it without Admins approval. Sp, I guess we have to blame the admin for these changes, cuz obviously he must've approved all these name change requests..........................


Edit: No offense David, I'm not targetting you (or annyone) I'm just frustrated.
To make it fair, I quote the reason for rejection:

"These change were made by numista admins - Kenny and others . There were hundreds of discussions on this theme, but coin names had not changed my them. So, Im not able to change any coin name without Admin` permission." So, there you have it.

Well, it was worth a try, but I guess we'll have to make a plea to the big boss here.

The Big Boss has already made the decision here -

"The currency should be written as it is usually spelled in English."

I'm not sure how much clearer it could be than that.

Someone has decided that they know better than the person who designed the database, the vast majority of it's users, every major world catalog and generations of numismatists.

I've been told by several reliable folks who are fluent in these languages that many of these "Google translate" generated abortions are not even remotely accurate.

But my requests were rejected because he couldn't change the name, only the admin can. Số, who changed it in in the first place?

Hello, dears.
As You all remember, those names of denominations were usual English names.
But once, all Dinars become danarin, , millemes - mallimat, Girsh - Qirushan , Pounds - Gunyah etc.

It was made by senior admins, which are " next step" after country` referees. And only in " my" period there were a lot of discussions. but names are still as they are.

To say the true, I like English names much more then local ones. Because I hear and read these words whole my life, and Danarin, qirushan etc I saw HERE first time.

Ngdawa, I CAN change all names to English. And I would be glad to change these names as well, but if they were changed from English to native tongues, it means, that modifications already done. and all my actions will be count as vandalism .

But actually, I dont understand it. Catalog`s aim is to make life easy, and not difficult. ... If we have English forum, why we dont use English names? If we would use Italian, all "cents" would be " Centesimi", right? If we should use French, all pounds would be " Livre" . But... we use English, so lets use English names of each currency...

from my side +1 vote

yours
David

Citeer: "pnightingale"​Until we know exactly who is responsible and have a cast iron assurance that he or she is going to be prevented from such destructive acts in future it seems wisest to simply not use the Islamic part of the database and stick to those countries which are still useable.
​
​This problem has been going on for a long time and any attempts to fix it have been met with indifference or an arrogant smugness.
​
​Good luck.
​
​

We already know who it was, people were blaming Imreh but then Kenny admitted that it was him

https://en.numista.com/forum/topic32168.html

Thanks Neil, I thought that was the case but I couldn't quite recall why. I opted to remain quiet until it could be confirmed as he has enough "critiques" to contend with.

Interesting that the problem was originally raised way back in August 2014 and here we are 15 months later still being ignored and the problem persists.

The English name of the coin isn't changed or removed. The English name of the coin is provided in the "name of the coin" section of the data, and the true name of the coin is in the title. If you refer to a 10 qirsh coin as 10 piastres, you will be able to find the coin through quick search.

Polish coins, for example, have kept the same transliteration "issue". Coins are written as 1 Zloty, 2 Zlote, 10 Zlotych because this is the correct grammatical spelling of singular and plural zloty. If we abolished the appropriate translation, they would all say 1 Zloty, 2 Zloty, 10 Zloty, or even 1 Golden, 2 Golden, 10 Golden to be literal.

Remember the English equivalent of every page will be found in the data. The issue seems to be "I don't like the way it looks" when actually both names are listed. If the page cannot be found through search, it seems to be an issue with the search function.

If a page does not have its English equivalent, let me know and I will add it to the page.

No, the complaint is that this is the English side of the site, and the coins should be listed in their English forms, as Phil pointed out that Xavier has decided. Plus the fact that when we export our collection to Excel, all of these changes just make the spreadsheet unreadable

for example:

Citeer: "neilithic"​No, the complaint is that this is the English side of the site, and the coins should be listed in their English forms, as Phil pointed out that Xavier has decided. Plus the fact that when we export our collection to Excel, all of these changes just make the spreadsheet unreadable
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​for example:
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​

​+1. uncomfortable excel version  :( Same sub-value ( for example. MILLIEMES" ) has several meanings in excel filter. Mallimat, Mallim.. It means that we must serach after CTRL-F " MA" and not " MI" , and its too difficult after many years of using " milliemes" and "Dinars" and not " mallimat" and " Danarar"
I know that it willnot changed. but at least admins must to know a per-cent of active members, which have problems with these titles. I collect African coins more than 15 years, and its not comfortable even for me. I can imagine, how it looks for for main army of young collectors, who see in Krause " Milliemes" and here - " mallimat" . And yes, I ussually receive questions from members, like " wtf" and modification requests, as they count that there is mistake, made in the title of the coin :) .

YOurs
D.

There you go Kenny: Xavier has stated that the currency names should be in English, the majority of users want the currency names to be in English, the main catalogue that collectors use (Krause) lists the currencies in English, and the referee for some of the currencies affected has stated he prefers English.

It's more than just "I don't like how it looks" it's about getting consistency with what other catalogues are using, and respecting the wishes of the users who actually use the site.

I personally don't use the search function, when I'm looking up coins I go into the country section and scroll through the coins, that way I can browse through other coins from the country, planning future purchases or just admiring nice coins, the change to the currency names affects that.

Citeer: "KennyG"​Polish coins, for example, have kept the same transliteration "issue". Coins are written as 1 Zloty, 2 Zlote, 10 Zlotych because this is the correct grammatical spelling of singular and plural zloty. If we abolished the appropriate translation, they would all say 1 Zloty, 2 Zloty, 10 Zloty, or even 1 Golden, 2 Golden, 10 Golden to be literal.

​The correct spelling of the Polish coins are Złoty, Złote, and Złotych.
The Ł is pronounced like the English W.

Also you can't translitterate Latin script to Latin script. You can just spell the words wrong by removing the diacritical marks.

I think it is easiest to use the commonly accepted word, without any accent.

Citeer: "dptashny"​I think it is easiest to use the commonly accepted word, without any accent.

​Me too, I was just making a point the he found Zloty being better than Złoty, but Danānīr and Dīnārā being better than Dinars, obviously.

Yes. Zloty and Dinars are commonly accepted words that most numismatists know, unlike Gunyah and Danānīr.

But why is it so difficult to just change it back to that?




I got the same answer for all my Algerian and Egyptian change requests:

Hi,

just a little thought, since our COINS SOURCE book is Krause (for the dates from 1601 to now), then we MUST stick with the names defined there to be able to make easy cross references.

If not, then we have a CHAOTIC Numista catalog, where the next suggestion would be to CHANGE the KM# into something SPECIFIC for some few Numista people "knowing better"....

I, for one, would leave the group immediately, if this should happen!

So please stick to the KM definitions ALL OVER, since you pick all the other data from there, logical isn't it?

Ole

Citeer: "Sjoelund"​Hi,
​
​just a little thought, since our COINS SOURCE book is Krause (for the dates from 1601 to now), then we MUST stick with the names defined there to be able to make easy cross references.
​
​If not, then we have a CHAOTIC Numista catalog, where the next suggestion would be to CHANGE the KM# into something SPECIFIC for some few Numista people "knowing better"....
​
​I, for one, would leave the group immediately, if this should happen!
​
​So please stick to the KM definitions ALL OVER, since you pick all the other data from there, logical isn't it?
​
​Ole

​Hear, hear!

Krause isn't perfect but I think Numista should align with Krause in most situations.

Citeer: "ngdawa"​But why is it so difficult to just change it back to that?
​
​
​
​
​I got the same answer for all my Algerian and Egyptian change requests:
​
​

​Its not diificult. Very easy. Just need to make a correct decision from Admins .

I think we could add local spelling or pronunciation in different field, even could add voice But in title better to use English ( international) terms and words. without any additional melisma over letters . Or, at least we could add in the title both - local+ Intl. spelling
yours
d

I don't see why local spelling is necessary... even if it is included it should be in the information box not the title.

Citeer: "Dato Mikeladze"​​Its not diificult. Very easy. Just need to make a correct decision from Admins .
​

Haha! Well, that's the hard part I was talking about

Citeer: "Dato Mikeladze"​I think we could add local spelling or pronunciation in different field, even could add voice But in title better to use English ( international) terms and words. without any additional melisma over letters . Or, at least we could add in the title both - local+ Intl. spelling

​But what did you think about my solution, daTo? Even though you didn't have the authority to approve it, did you reckon it looked good, or do you have any ideas hw to make it even better?

Citeer: "dptashny"​Krause isn't perfect but I think Numista should align with Krause in most situations.

​Compared to today Numista it is......

Citeer: "dptashny"​Krause isn't perfect but I think Numista should align with Krause in most situations.

​Nobody is perfect, but some (KM and Schoen) are certainly the best and all the on-line "copies" of those two are behind..... honestly I cannot see, where KM should align to Numista???? Numista certainly has new coins faster on-line than KM, but it stops there (my opinion).

Ole

This perfectly illustrates the problem with the Numista management model.

A teenage "expert" decides he knows more than the site's creator, referees, numismatists with decades of experience, all major cataloguing systems, decades of convention, and around 100% of the membership, and makes some large scale and destructive changes apparently without consulting anyone. Legitimate concerns are ignored for 15 months then simply brushed off as just people "not liking the way it looks". It should be clear to even the most challenged that these changes can not be allowed to remain so why not drop the arrogant façade and get busy returning the database to the state it was in before you discovered Google Translate?

It's not the first time that this type of situation has occurred and correct me if I'm wrong, it's the primary reason for the outright hostility towards admin team members on the French Forum which is bordering on an open rebellion. This latest fiasco could have been resolved over a year ago with a simple "mea culpa" and an equal amount of effort put into restoring the damage as was put into creating it. The "Team" has an abundantly clear need for some adult supervision and some serious soul searching.

Citeer: "Sjoelund"​Hi,
​
​just a little thought, since our COINS SOURCE book is Krause (for the dates from 1601 to now), then we MUST stick with the names defined there to be able to make easy cross references.
​
​If not, then we have a CHAOTIC Numista catalog, where the next suggestion would be to CHANGE the KM# into something SPECIFIC for some few Numista people "knowing better"....
​
​I, for one, would leave the group immediately, if this should happen!
​
​So please stick to the KM definitions ALL OVER, since you pick all the other data from there, logical isn't it?
​
​Ole,

​Agreed on all points except one, Ole. Why reinvent the wheel?

The ability to cross reference across a variety of sources is absolutely crucial for me too. Without that function it would be better to simply use an Excel spreadsheet and leave Numista to the juvenile delinquents.

I would only add that while I would welcome us following the currency names, the country/territory names are a different matter. For example, I much prefer the way Numista handles Ireland as a single entry rather than trying to break out the Irish Free State and Republic but I prefer the way K&M handles post 1870 Germany (split)and Austria (unified). Both of these latter two countries are currently the subject of some very interesting discussion so it's quite possible we might arrive at a solution which is better than both the current Numista method and Krause.

From memory, I'm pretty sure that they also allow some rather off-the-wall issuing authorities ranging from Middle Earth to The Moon. I don't think too many of us would be keen on seeing those added :)

Dear admins... Imagine, once, in the sunny Sunday YOu woke up, open Numista, and discover these country names instead of English ones... Try to work over this list about 15 minutes using dictionaries and Google , and then you will find that You are happy that one of them is just Tunis or Vaticanum ( like Mallimat with similar sounds) , but what with all other Gunyah countries ?????

Vaticanum
al-Jazā'ir
Shqipëria
Hayastan
druk-yul
Zhōngguó
Sak'art'velo
Bhārat
Uburundi
Crna Gora
Srbija
Viti
Ertrā
Ityoṗya
Lietuva
Tašād
Nippon
Hrvatska
Aotearoa
Joseon
al-Mūrītānīyâ
Hanguk
Éire
Bê-Afrîka
Lāw
Papua Niugini,
al-Qumur
Eesti
Jībūtī
Suomi
Magyarország ,
Miṣr
Lībiyā
Madagasikara
Malaŵi
al-Maġrib
Soomaaliya
as-Sūdān
kaNgwaneUmbuso
Tūnis

:)

yours
D

Haha! I knew them all except for kaNgwaneUmbuso, which is wrong, since it should be Umbuso weSwatini, kaNgwane, or eSwatini.

I couldn't figure out Lāw though, but my bet goes on Laos.

and so on.....

Danmark
Deutschland
Norge
Sverige
Færøerne
Island..............

not to think about, what we normally call South-Africa, where each major language contained in the republic has it's own name for the same country, can you imagine the number of change requests, that could result out of that?

No way, stick to the ENGLISH definitions, please, Please, PLease, PLEase, PLEAse, PLEASe, PLEASE

Let's be reasonable?

Ole

Citeer: "ngdawa"​Haha! I knew them all except for kaNgwaneUmbuso, which is wrong, since it should be Umbuso weSwatini, kaNgwane, or eSwatini.
​
​I couldn't figure out Lāw though, but my bet goes on Laos.

​:) okay, I agree to change it to Umbuso weSwatini

@ngdawa: I don't know what that is but Laos is simply Lao if my memory serves me correctly.

@Phil: Middle Earth and the Moon are not listed in the main Krause catalog.

As said, for me it is not logical that the countries´names are in English, and the currencies in their own language.
As said, I also find it very annoying when exporting to excel and have a bunch of characters not recognized.

The rule should be - follow the conventioned currency name in any catalog.

Just my 2 Gunayirs (or gunayars or gunayets) and 40 mallimats for everyone.

Citeer: "dptashny"​@ngdawa: I don't know what that is but Laos is simply Lao if my memory serves me correctly.

​Yes, that is correct. I was just thinking it might be a different transliteration plus I couldn't come up with anything it could be

And Sjoelund, for a Scandinavian that was way too easy

Citeer: "Dato Mikeladze"​

Citeer: "ngdawa"​Haha! I knew them all except for kaNgwaneUmbuso, which is wrong, since it should be Umbuso weSwatini, kaNgwane, or eSwatini.
​​
​​I couldn't figure out Lāw though, but my bet goes on Laos.
​
​

​​:) okay, I agree to change it to Umbuso weSwatini

​haha, გმადლობთ დათო!

and please let me know what Lāw is

Citeer: "ngdawa"​

Citeer: "Dato Mikeladze"​
​

Citeer: "ngdawa"​Haha! I knew them all except for kaNgwaneUmbuso, which is wrong, since it should be Umbuso weSwatini, kaNgwane, or eSwatini.
​​​
​​​I couldn't figure out Lāw though, but my bet goes on Laos.
​​
​​

​​​:) okay, I agree to change it to Umbuso weSwatini

​​haha, გმადლობთ დათო!
​
​and please let me know what Lāw is

​:) არაფრის, ჩემო კარგო !

yeah, its Laos. I found it here:
http://www.omniglot.com/countries/asia.htm
funny web. probably those Danarara and Gunyahs also would find there :)

yours
D

Citeer: "ngdawa"

​Yes, yes, sorry, but yes, we also have to include Scandinavia and then subdivide into separate states and not forget Danelagen, our old part of what is now known as Great Britain. I wonder if we should include Normandy (now a part of France) into the old age Scandinavia as well???

What a horror scenario

Ole

So..... is it getting fixed?

Citeer: "pnightingale"​So..... is it getting fixed?

​So far only 1 of all my requests was approved. So I'm afraid the answer is no..

Citeer: "ngdawa"​

Citeer: "pnightingale"​So..... is it getting fixed?

​​So far only 1 of all my requests was approved. So I'm afraid the answer is no..

That was Me, when you send a lot of requests First one was validated )))

Citeer: "Dato Mikeladze"​That was Me, when you send a lot of requests First one was validated )))

​Yepp! But I never understood why to validated just one of them? At least half of my request was the same, with an addition of the more common names every collector, new and old, knows.

Anuhow, one down, 70 million to go, haha!

Citeer: "ngdawa"​

Citeer: "Dato Mikeladze"​That was Me, when you send a lot of requests First one was validated )))

​​Yepp! But I never understood why to validated just one of them? At least half of my request was the same, with an addition of the more common names every collector, new and old, knows.
​
​Anuhow, one down, 70 million to go, haha!

​It was my " mistake"  :) - I thought You have requested changes in " current value" field and not in coin title. But, anyway, from this validation this question started again . And, I hope, it will be fixed soon or lately
yours
D

Citeer: "pnightingale"​So..... is it getting fixed?

​Could someone please update us on what progress has been made so far in removing these unwelcome and unwise changes?

My Tunisian requests are still unanswered. I don't really get the problem, since the referees can easily change this himself, obviously. So just do it already!

If every referee changes the names of the currencies on their own it will be a mess. Kenny is working on rules how to name Arabic currencies and I think we should wait for the results. Hope he will be ready soon though

I agree Don Chori, this problem is not for the Referee's to fix. Thank you for responding.

There are already rules in place which have been ignored leading to the current deplorable state of affairs. "Denominations will be entered in English."

I find the idea that Kenny, the originator of this mess, is going to come up with new rules to fix it to be concerning. I see no sign that he is even aware of the problems he has created. There is no need for new rules, the old one worked just fine until he discovered Google Translate.

So Dinar/-s, piastre/-s, pound/-s, qirsh, millim/millième/-s, are no longer exaptable? I can make a list in less than an hour, then ppl can vote. Thus is not a major project, this is just a request to use the names the majority of the numismatic world is using.

The original denominations were just fine.

The changes should not have been made without consultation, it's a cooperative database built and used by thousands worldwide, not one person's vanity project. If there had been prior discussion it would have very quickly been made clear that the proposed changes were ridiculous before any damage was done.

This is exactly the type of farce which drives away a lot of serious numismatists and the really frustrating part is that is was entirely avoidable with the application of a little common sense. It's also part of a behavior pattern which has caused massive discontent of the French Forum which I used to think was somewhat unjust and overstated but now I'm not so sure.

Stop fixing things which aren't broke!

Citeer: "pnightingale"​Stop fixing things which aren't broke!
​

​Agreed!