Talk:Ghent

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[edit] Celtic times

"The city was inhabited in Celtic times." This is meaningless and should be replaced by a date. Piet 14:24, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Okay, better now, but anyone has an idea of the earliest settlements of which remains have been found? Piet 15:41, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

For what it is worth, this link mentions: The region of Ghent was settled since the Stone Age and seems to have been inhabited continuously since at least Celtic and Roman times. --Donar Reiskoffer 19:24, 30 January 2006 (UTC)


for what I can add to that as living in ghent all my life ;-) , the earlist foundation of the city are where the to rivers merge. that's the foundation ground. Where "De leie" flows into "De schelde".

The first WRITTEN mention of Ghent is on roman Maps where it was callen Gandium. Ganda is the celtic word that is the origin for the name and in the middle ages the spelling differed from Gend, ghent, Gendt to finally Gent. UPDATE, okay, the enlgish names of the rivers are : Scheldt and Lys, but should it be in the article Scheldt(De schelde) and Lys(de leie)? scheld you can easely see as de schelde, but Lys, before I read this article here I would have had a single idea that it was the english name for De Leie. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 81.164.169.24 (talk) 12:33, August 20, 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Confluence

The Dutch language article claims that ganda could NOT have meant confluence. The explanation is a bit unclear though. Piet 10:57, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Pronunciation

I know how it's pronunciated, but I don't know IPA well.

  • [IPA: xɛnt] is the hard -ch- sound like loch. This is wrong I think.
  • Soft g for the Dutch pronunciation. I will trust Donarreiskoffer on this: [IPA: ɣɛ:nt]
  • For the English pronunciation, after checking IPA chart for English, I would say [IPA: gɛ:nt] (like go get and gate). Can someone confirm this? Piet 12:37, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
I changed the Dutch pronunciation from [IPA: ɣɛ:nt] to [IPA: ʝɛ:nt]. They are both correct but the first one is as spoken in the (northern) Netherlands, and the second as in Flanders (and the southern Netherlands). As Ghent is a Flemish city the second variant may be preferred. See also: nl:Zachte g. --Donar Reiskoffer 13:38, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
Interesting, I actually thought the hard g was simply [x]. I can't really imagine the three distinct sounds, probably because only two are in the language as I speak and hear it around me. We could add both pronunciations, I don't know what is usual in this case. What do you think for the English IPA pronunciation? It is actually more important since this is the English language wikipedia. Piet 14:30, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
wikt:get show us [gɛt]. The vowel sound in Ghent, is longer than in Get so I think your proposal, [IPA: gɛ:nt], is quite right. --Donar Reiskoffer 17:54, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

I can't read the diacritics used here, but I'd just like to say that the 'g' in Dutch is not pronounced like 'get'. Our 'g' is not a plosive, but a voiced continous fricative pronounced at about the same hight where you'd pronounce [k]. I hope you understand what I mean, it's been a while since I read stuff about pronounciation and I might have mixed up Dutch terms with English ones.

[edit] Mayor

Three people (IP adresses) have now changed the name of the mayor from Frank Beke to Daniël Termont. Let me just state once again that the new mayor (and new council) only starts at January 1st, even though the elections were on October 8th. So please don't change the current mayor to give the name of the future one, however correct that will be. You can have a race on January 1st to be the first to change it again though, I won't revert it then anymore ;-) Fram 15:06, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] twin cities

I changed the twin cities,as Des Moines and Miami are NOT twin cities of Ghent. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 212.123.26.150 (talk) 14:42, 30 January 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Should this article be called Gent or Ghent?

As the city is in the Flemish part of Belgium, should the article use the Flemish not the French name?

Ghent is the English name. The French name would be Gand...

Although Ghent may be the name known outside Belgium historically, visitors to Belgium will now see it being refered to primarily by its Flemish name.

I was about to disambiguate Gent but I'm not going to now realising that there are countless links to the "wrong" spelling. However, the town's name is spelled Gent in both the German and the Dutch Wikipedia. <KF> 22:36, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
Yep, because the city is called "Gent" inboth the German and Dutch language. It is called "Gante" in the Asturian and Spanish Wikipedias, "Gand" in the French Wikipedia, and "Gandavum" in the Latin Wikipedia, since that is the name for the city in these langauges. The article should definitely be called "Ghent", not "Gent", on the English Wikipedia (with "Gent" as a logical and necessary redirect of course). Fram (talk) 09:19, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
Fine with me. However, I seem to be a bit slow on the uptake. Does that mean that Gent is Dutch and Ghent is Flemish?
If so—in other words, if cities have their entries under the name used by their respective inhabitants—wouldn't, say, Rome have to be at Roma? Or is Ghent the correct English spelling as well?
My main concern, however, is all those contributors who spell the city Gent and link it like this in their articles. There are so many links of that kind that it would be a tough job going through them all and correcting Gent to Ghent. The other alternative (which, I suppose, you have referred to) would be to move the Gent disambiguation page to Gent (disambiguation) and actually turn Gent into a redirect to Ghent.
What do you think? <KF> 17:34, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
I seem to have expressed myself not clear enough. The article on Ghent is placed at the name used for it language X in the X Wikipedia. The Dutch (Flemish) and German name for Ghent is Gent, so the article is there at Gent. The Spanish name for Ghent is Ganda, and the Spanish Wikipedia has an article "Ganda". The French article is at "Gand". So cities have their article under the name used in the language of the Wikipedia (i.c. English), and not under the name used by the inhabitants.
As for Gent: I haven't checked, but if it clear from the incoming links that a large majority of the times Ghent is intended, then it may indeed be better to redirect Gent here and to create a Gent (disambiguation). However, this should be discussed at Gent, not here. Fram (talk) 20:36, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
Thank you. To be continued at Talk:Gent. <KF> 05:42, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] H2G2

I removed the trivia section stating "In The Hitchhikers Guide to The Galaxy, Ghent is used as an insult (As in "Zaphod you Ghent"). This could stem from "Belgium" being the most heinous swear word in the galaxy." I have a digital edition of the British version, and it's not in there. If this is only in the American version, it should be stated as such. For now, it's gone, untill someone comes up with a source. 82.146.105.17 12:19, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fair use rationale for Image:Arms-nottingham.jpg

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BetacommandBot (talk) 04:14, 12 February 2008 (UTC)