Talk:Seychelles
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Is it more properly Seychelles or the Seychelles? That is, History of Seychelles or History of the Seychelles? I notice they're not all in agreement. e.g. Demographics of Seychelles vs. Economy of the Seychelles. --KQ 20:58 Sep 6, 2002 (UCT)
- Short form "Seychelles", no direct article. Long form "Republic of Seychelles". Here's their ministry of foreign affairs (http://seychelles.diplomacy.edu/). --Brion 05:30 Sep 7, 2002 (UTC)
I think that, as with most archipelagos, common use is to add "the". As in "the government of the US Virgin Islands decided that.." or the "the team of the Maldives were defeated by.." etc. The official French name (French is spoken there) is also République des Seychelles, which I would also translate with Republic of the Seychelles... Anyway, it doesn't really matter, as long as the use is consistent. Jeronimo
- Yes, and Canada is le Canada in French. On va au Canada. Voici le site web du gouvernement du Canada (http://canada.gc.ca/main_f.html). But, we're speaking English here, and the official English name does not have an article, neither for Canada nor for Seychelles. Informal usage with "the" is not uncommon, but what can you do? --Brion
Yeah, the French always use articles for countries, I kinda forgot about that... But in English, it is also common to use articles for plurals: the United States, f.e. But if the official name appears to be without the, so be it. Jeronimo
- The impression I get from looking through dictionaries is that if I'm talking about the islands, I can say "the Seychelles (islands)", but if I'm talking about the country (which of course covers the same ground, no?), I probably should prefer to say "Seychelles". Furthermore, I'm unsure about pronunciation... my tendency would be to say "the say-shells" but "say-shell" or "the say-shell islands", but this may just be me. In any case, the official name of the country, for good reason or not, is article-less and that's that. :) --Brion
So the pages should be without "the" in the title? --KQ 14:10 Sep 7, 2002 (UTC)
- I say yes. If you're paranoid, make redirects that have "the" in em. --Brion 03:54 Sep 9, 2002 (UTC)
- Fair enough. I'm doing this and then going to bed. --KQ 04:05 Sep 9, 2002 (UTC)