Talk:nakba

RFV discussion: July–August 2014

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nakba

RFV on the English section. There are currently two items in the English section:

1. Alternative spelling of Nakba.
2. A catastrophe; an event that results in great loss, sorrow, and misery. (Added in diff.)

For the proper noun sense, I ask for attestation of this capitalization.

The sole quotation currently provided for the 2nd sense is a mention, IMHO ('For Muslims, the capture in 1967 of the Temple Mount (Harem al— Sharif to them) stands as a nakba, Arabic for “catastrophe.”'). Searches: google books:"nakba", google groups:"nakba", “nakba”, in OneLook Dictionary Search. --Dan Polansky (talk) 07:51, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

The following quotations now present in the entry are mentions rather than uses, IMHO:

• For Muslims, the capture in 1967 of the Temple Mount (Harem al— Sharif to them) stands as a nakba, Arabic for “catastrophe.”
• While a "nakba" referred to an invasion by an alien (non-Muslim) power, often accompanied by mass looting, destruction, and population uprooting [...]
• Our President is admitting that the war has been a nakba, a setback. 'I take full personal responsibility.' 'But not for long,' murmurs Mahmoud, in whose company I am watching this ultra-dramatic moment.
• At the ceremony to donate the funds, Rafik Husseini, an aide to Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, referred to what happened in New Orleans as a nakba. (Italics in the original.)
• Al-Quds, the largest Palestinian daily, described the collapse of Baghdad as a nakba (catastrophe). "This is not going to be the last nakba," it said in an editorial.

--Dan Polansky (talk) 15:09, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

"The capture in 1967 of the Temple Mount (Harem al— Sharif to them) stands as a nakba", "Our President is admitting that the war has been a nakba, a setback", and "This is not going to be the last nakba" look like uses to me. —Mr. Granger (talk • contribs) 15:12, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

For the 1st one, with the important part highlighted by me in italics: "[...] the capture in 1967 of the Temple Mount (Harem al— Sharif to them) stands as a nakba, Arabic for “catastrophe.”. The sentence is explicit about referring to nakba as an Arabic word, not an English one; and it immediately provides the meaning, so the reader does not need to know the meaning of "nakba" (indeed, most readers don't).

For the 2nd one: The president is probably an Arabic speaker, and the book uses a romanization of an Arabic word, immediately stating the meaning of the word to the reader after a comma. Such a provision of meaning after a comma is IMHO a good telltale mark that the quotation cannot be reliably understood to be using the word to convey meaning.

For the 3rd quotation, when one takes the sentence mentioned by you alone, it really looks like use. But the sentence is immediately preceded by a sentence introducing the Arabic word "nakba". To me, seeing this as a use is questionable, while not as unequivocal as the other quotations. --Dan Polansky (talk) 15:46, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

Re the common-noun sense "a catastrophe": I share Dan's misivings about the citations which are currently in the entry. The 2013 citation makes clear that it is merely mentioning nakba, not only by its phrasing, but also by italicizing the term as an occurrence of a foreign word, not an English word. (Whoever typed the citations up in the entry did a sloppy job of it, because they didn't reproduce this italicization, and they didn't sort the quotations by date.) Likewise, the 1995 is a mention, and although the cited edition of the work (Societal transition to democracy in Mauritania) doesn't italicize the term, other editions do (e.g. Political Liberalization and Democratization in the Arab World). The 2014 is another mention, both in its phrasing and in that it italicizes the term. The 2003 citation is questionable, for the reasons Dan outlines. The 1998 citation, on the other hand, looks solid, and I have placed one other citation which I think it valid at Citations:nakba; notably, it uses the plural.
Re the "alternative capitalization" sense: in trying to cite the common-noun sense, I came across enough citations of lowercase "nakba" meaning "the Nakba" that I think I can cite it. I'll see...
- -sche (discuss) 17:12, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

Update: I have moved the questionable citations out of the entry and into the citations page, leaving the one citation I thought was good and adding two more. - -sche (discuss) 17:24, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

Both senses are now cited, I think. - -sche (discuss) 17:55, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

Passed. — Ungoliant ^(falai) 01:55, 19 August 2014 (UTC)