Talk:Nairi

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Nairi (First Name Origin and Meaning) Armenian Female name

Not necessarily from Armenia, but was rather one of the ancient proto-Armenian tribes. Nairi is a trendy name among Armenians today. Rrendering it Nayiri (Na-YI'-ri) would be more accurate but alternates such as from 'Nairi' to 'Nayri' to 'Niree' to 'Niherie' have been used.

Contents

[edit] On edit-war

I fail to see the need for two templates. I don't see how {{History of Armenia}} is relevant here, the connections look really tenuous and fringy. {{Armenia-related topics}} makes perfect sense, of course, because of the connection to Armenian nationalism, but there's no need for two of these miserable boxes, not when one is misleading. Moreschi (talk) (debate) 08:16, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Separate article suggestion

  • Oppose. The article is very small and there is no reason to split it in two, because content of the two pieces is directly related to each other. `'Míkka>t 03:14, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

The size of the article doesn't matter; the content matters. Armenian nationalism evolved in the late 19th century, while the entity of Nairi was considered a polity in late Bronze Age Assyria. Nicklausse (talk) 04:34, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

It is disputable whether it was polity. The "60 kings" conquered by Tiglath-Pileser most likely were tribal chieftains. There is simply not enough space for 60 kings around Van Lake. `'Míkka>t 05:40, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
I didn't say it was. The Assyrians considered it some sort of unity under the name "Nairi". "60 Kings" is merely the typical royal hyperbole of the day. Nicklausse (talk) 13:09, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] History of Armenia navbox

Nairi is very loosely related with "history of Armenia" . The article already has a navbox "Armenia related topics" at the botom. By the way, the article says absolutely nothing how exactly Nairi is part of the history of Armenia, forgetting pure geography. But if judge from geography, then Hittite Empire is part of the History of Armenia as well. `'Míkka>t 03:14, 29 April 2008 (UTC)


Yes, the article says nothing about how Nairi is part of the history Armenia because it was not directly related to it, and pre-dates the first attested Armenians by half a millenium. And, as you know, the Hittite Empire wasn't directly related either. There is an Armenian topics navbox on the page, and I don't think this is the article for it. The Armenian - Nairi connection is an invention of the late 19th century. Nicklausse (talk) 04:45, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

The talk page of template {{History of Armenia}} reasonably says that template {{History of Austria}} contains Hallstatt culture of Early Iron Age. `'Míkka>t 05:46, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
Why derisive language, "invention"? Why not "theory"? Please get used to non-emotional, neutral language of wikipedia.
`'Míkka>t 05:46, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
  1. Notice that there are no {{History of Austria}} templates on the Hallstatt culture page.
  2. Nairi itself appears to be an "invention" of the Assyrians.
Nicklausse (talk) 13:17, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
Nicklausse has now reverted 4 times in one day.-- Ευπάτωρ Talk!! 13:50, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
Did you put back that administrator-removed template, so that it would necessarily be reverted, in order to say this? Nicklausse (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 14:47, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Relation to Armenia

Armenioan editors, please explain Armenian theories about Nairi as prehistory of Armenia in this article. Otherwise the Armenian navbox and categor must be removed. Thank you,Mukadderat (talk) 04:30, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Query

Hiya, I see that this article is currently protected due to edit wars. I have no opinion as to the article content, but am currently gathering data on these kinds of things, and was wondering if I could ask a couple questions? This will help with my participation in the ArbCom-appointed Working group on ethnic and cultural edit wars.

Specifically: This article seems to have been stable for awhile, and then about a week ago it "blew up". What do you think that the flash point was? I realize that there might be different opinions here, but I'd be interested in everyone's view. I'd also be interested in what people think is needed in order to get the article stable again? Also, do any of you participate in any of the reconciliation projects, such as the Wikipedia:Assyrian-Syriac wikipedia cooperation board? Would this article fall within that scope, or would it need something different? Sorry for the uneducated questions, I just don't know very much about this particular topic, so I'd appreciate some remedial help! Thanks, Elonka 21:55, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

This is quite an obscure topic that has been stable since it was created except when it would undergo an attack along with several other articles by a banned User:Ararat arev who has the habit of spreading original and borderline mysticist research. The current edit war was initiated by two related (potentially the same user) users:[1]. The article is outside the scope of that particular project; however, this tribal confederation of sorts is only attested by Assyrian writings.-- Ευπάτωρ Talk!! 15:50, 2 May 2008 (UTC)


Elonka, this is actually not a conflict of different ethnic groups, such as Assyria/Syriac. This is archaeological history vs. modern nationalism, and in the case of this page, the block was placed simply to keep a banned user off the page.

Basically this page has been like this for a while, with editors and administrators occasionally poking at it and being reverted. I came upon it while working on the ancient Near East categories, although I had a pretty good idea what to expect here. The Nairi are a rather vague ancient group, known to us only from Assyrian sources. When we have groups for which little is known, this seems to open the door for some people to create their own histories, by filling in the blanks with what suits their agendas. In the late 19th century, Armenian nationalists came up with we-are-the-origen-of-everything theories, and rationalized all the poorly understood, and in some cases mythical ancient groups as their ancestors. There are some editors here who actually are trying to promulgate this stuff in this day and age.

The reason edit wars have flaired up is because there is a bit more insistance that we heed historical facts. Although the Armenians may have some issues with some of their neighbors, in my opinion the people called the "Nairi" didn't do anything to deserve having their history coopted by modern-day nationalists.

Nairi isn't within the scope of modern Assyrian-Syriac debates; the only connection is that ancient Assyrian writings give us our only information about a group they labled the "Nairi".

Sumerophile (talk) 22:35, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, and editors aside, what do the secondary sources say? --Elonka 23:07, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

I see there is a separate Nairi (Armenian usages) now. I am not convinced this is a good idea, since it holds a potential of becoming a pov fork, but as long as we do keep "Armenian usage" separate, it is clear that reference to Armenian Romantic nationalism should be kept to a bare minimum in this article. dab (𒁳) 08:10, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Well all this nationalism *is* a POV fork, and I'd certainly prefer to keep it separate from ancient Nairi article. That way the nationalist editors can have a field day on their own turf and not disrupt the main article any more. Sumerophile (talk) 16:26, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
I agree that is a reasonable approach to keep documented facts apart from speculative theories and their consequences. Especially in this particular case when facts are very little, and the article may easily be drowned in speculative material. `'Míkka>t 20:08, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
Thank you, this is the most reasonable post I've seen in all this. I do disagree with calling Nairi prehistoric anything, because we know of it from written, historic sources. And the templates also don't address this topic; we don't exactly know which people are referred to, and the "Nairi" don't have any archaeological sites per se. Sumerophile (talk) 20:23, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

it goes without saying that Romantic nationalism needs to be clearly separate from Bronze Age history. The question is, does "Nairi in Armenian nationalism" merit a standalone article? We should not give it more than passing mention here, but perhaps the details should be merged into Armenian nationalism and discussed in context there? The Armenian nationalism article needs attention anyway; there is a long-standing merge request with Armenian national awakening. The emergence of the "Nairi" idea in crackpot "Armenology" should be discussed in the context of the antiquity frenzy rampant in Armenian nationalism in general. The approach of "the nationalist editors can have a field day on their own turf and not disrupt the main article any more" is precisely what we mean by "pov fork", and what we want to avoid at any cost. It won't work anyway: you will note that nationalist editors never focus on articles about nationalism, they always go straight for the articles on ancient history. Any article on "$ANTIQUITY in $ETHNIC nationalism" is doomed to just be left lying to decay. dab (𒁳) 07:28, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

It would be fine merged with the Nationalism article, and the less discussion in this article the better; the disambiguation link at the top of the page would suffice in my opinion. Sumeroduo (talk) 13:45, 5 May 2008 (UTC)