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Initial comments

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Any initial comments?Dave (talk) 00:25, 7 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Move

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Seems highly unlikely that this is the WP:ENGLISH WP:COMMONNAME of this area, over Latium Adjectum, New Latium, &c. Someone should do some quick Googlefu at Books and Ngram and move it to the proper location, fixing the links from Old Latium and Latium#History. — LlywelynII 08:02, 9 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Map needed

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This article would really benefit from a map rather than a colorful photo. Aldiboront (talk) 21:21, 7 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move 8 April 2025

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Latium Adjectum → ? – On 21 July 2024, the article was moved unilaterally to "Latium Adjectum" without a formal move request or community discussion (see 2015 talk page comment), and the current title violates Wikipedia's naming conventions in both capitalization and spelling Vineviz (talk) 02:24, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

expanded rationale

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1) Per MOS:CAPS and WP:AT, article titles should use sentence case. "Latium" is a proper noun and remains capitalized, but "adiectum" is a Latin participle and should not be capitalized.

2) The spelling "adjectum" is a post-Classical or Anglicized variant. Classical Latin spelling (per Lewis & Short, Gaffiot, and modern scholarship like Cornell 1995 and the *Barrington Atlas*) is "adiectum".

3) No compelling evidence supports "Latium Adjectum" as the dominant English name today. "Latium adiectum" is more consistent with modern academic usage and sources.

This move restores style and spelling consistent with scholarly usage and Wikipedia's guidelines.

Vineviz (talk) 22:34, 7 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Can you correct the move target? It seems to currently suggest that the name should be moved over the existing page Template:Move. I think the correct target of your request is back to Latium adiectum. Ifly6 (talk) 00:34, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for flagging this, and I think I corrected it now .Vineviz (talk) 02:26, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
A quick ngram check indicates that Latium Adjectum was the dominant form in English-language materials until the mid-1970's, and that it remains in use. Readers are likely to encounter it this way, and it should be retained in the lead whether or not the article is moved back. When the same word is or historically has been rendered in two different and common forms, both should be included so that readers are aware that either may be correct. P Aculeius (talk) 01:49, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for weighing in, and of course you're absolutely right that the article should reference both spellings in the lead.
Just to clarify—Google Ngram Viewer is case-sensitive by default, and part of the motivation for the move is to address both the spelling (adiectum vs. adjectum) and the capitalization (Adjectum vs. sentence case) issues present in the current title. When comparing Latium adiectum with Latium adjectum - which is the capitalization that most people will encounter - the former has been the dominant form in English-language publications since the 1920s and outnumbers the later by roughly 10:1 in Google Scholar. Vineviz (talk) 02:18, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You cite Cornell Beginnings (1995) but that book uses Latium Adiectum as on pp 351 and 410, which seems to support only your spelling claim. (Though on personal preference I essentially always prefer sentence case to title case.) I don't have a copy of Barrington on hand; does that capitalise adiectum? Ifly6 (talk) 02:22, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks—you're absolutely right that Cornell (1995) uses the spelling "Latium Adiectum" with the capital "A", as on pp. 351 and 410. That definitely supports the classical spelling (with "i" rather than "j") but not the sentence-case capitalization I'm proposing.
I should clarify that my citation of Cornell and Barringon was intended to support the spelling (adiectum vs. adjectum), not the capitalization. Both of those do seem to sue the fully capitalized version.
But as you note, capitalization is a matter of Wikipedia style (per MOS:CAPS and WP:AT), where sentence case is expected in article titles unless the capitalized form is overwhelmingly common in English-language sources which is not the case here. A quick scan of JSTOR and Google Scholar suggest that the sentence case form Latium Adiectum is the most common, appearing in about 80% of the top results.
That’s a good distinction to make, and I appreciate the correction. Vineviz (talk) 02:45, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"adiectum" is of course a Latin word, but that does not necessarily mean that "Latium Adiectum" is not itself a proper noun. We capitalise e.g. Pannonia Superior despite the fact that "superior" is a common Latin word rather than a proper noun by itself. Searching Google scholar seems to suggest that there's a mixture of uses, either capitalised or uncapitalised. I don't have a strong opinion on which is correct, but it does seem to be the case that "adiectum" is the more common spelling (searching Google scholar gives me results suggesting about 10x as common), so I'd support returning to the "adiectum" spelling whether or not we capitalise. Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 09:58, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the thoughtful comment, and I appreciate your support on the spelling. You're right that capitalization is more interpretive here, and it's helpful to have a neutral perspective noted. I agree that the stronger case is for restoring the classical spelling—on that point, there seems to be growing consensus. IMHO, the mixed data on capitalization supports using sentence case in the Wikipedia article title, but I can see why others might not be certain. Vineviz (talk) 12:22, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: I redid the ngram to see the results for both spellings with and without capitalization. Again, Adjectum/adjectum seems dominant until the 1970's, and remains in use, so will be widespread in literature. As for capitalization, it looks like treating Adjectum/Adiectum as part of a proper name is slightly favoured, so I think we should capitalize it, then indicate in the lead that some sources treat it as a proper name, while others do not. Obviously the Romans did not make this distinction, and current English capitalization rules date largely to the ninteenth century. These don't supply a clear answer here, since whether it's a proper name is more a matter of personal preference, but it seems like a logical inference to draw. Since we're using it like a proper name—a term designating a specific geographical area, whether or not its boundaries are clearly defined—not capitalizing it looks a bit odd, requiring an explanation (though that should be provided either way). P Aculeius (talk) 11:11, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for commenting.
On the spelling question I do think there's still some confusion about the Ngram data, though, and I don’t see any period since 1930 where "Latium adjectum" dominates "Latium adiectum." A quick search of JSTOR, for example, shows 122 results for "Latium adiectum" and only 4 for "Latium adjectum." On Google Scholar, I find 582 results for "Latium adiectum" compared to just 68 for "Latium adjectum." In a "Google Books" search for volumes published since 2001 I found about 85% use "Latium adiectum" while "Latium adjectum" is clearly dominant among 19th century works.
As for capitalization, Wikipedia's MOS:CAPS policy defaults to sentence case for titles unless there is overwhelming and consistent usage of a capitalized form in reliable English-language sources. Here, usage is at best mixed—even among major academic works—and where capitalization does occur, it’s often due to formatting (e.g., maps, headings, or title case), not consistent treatment as a proper name in running text.
I'm in full agreement that both forms should be mentioned in the lead (and we'll need to swap the redirects as well), along with an explanation of the historical and stylistic variation. But given Wikipedia's policy and the current distribution of scholarly usage, sentence case still seems the most appropriate for the article title. Vineviz (talk) 12:05, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Your ngram excluded capitalized instances, although Latium Adjectum was the most common form through about 1985 (with occasional spikes for Latium adjectum and Latium adiectum; Latium Adiectum only seems to have caught on as Latium Adjectum has declined). That's why the ngram I posted showed all four forms. If you do a case-insensitive form, you see that Adjectum/adjectum remained predominant until the 1970's, then swapped places with Adiectum/adiectum for the next decade, before the latter became more prevalent. However, if you exclude all sources published before 2001, you're excluding the majority of reference sources consulted by classical scholars. The distinction here isn't one of right and wrong; it's one of philosophy. We can't infer that authors published in the last twenty-five years are smarter and more correct than their predecessors. In cases such as this, selectively weighting sources by age only tells people what's trendy, not what's accurate. P Aculeius (talk) 15:42, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the thoughtful reply. I completely agree that older sources shouldn't be discounted, and you're right that Ngram trends illustrate usage but don't dictate correctness. And of course, the Ngram data includes not just prose references—on which we must base our judgment—but also titles and other non-running references.
Just to clarify: my JSTOR and Google Scholar numbers covered all time periods, not just post-2001. The post-2001 Google Books figure was included simply to illustrate the more recent shift in usage, but the broader preference for "adiectum" holds even when older sources are included.
In cases like this—where multiple forms coexist without a fixed classical standard—I think the best guide for Wikipedia is current academic usage across reliable sources. That usage seems to increasingly favor the classical spelling. Capitalization, as you noted, is more interpretive, but absent overwhelming consistency, sentence case still seems best aligned with MOS:CAPS. And yes, both forms should absolutely be presented and explained in the lead. Vineviz (talk) 11:30, 9 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Capitalisation

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I think we're generally in agreement that the article should be moved to Latium Adiectum or Latium adiectum. Can we do a survey of relatively modern reliable sources? The MOS:CAPS standard of consistently capitalized in a substantial majority of independent, reliable sources to me would indicate at least a supermajority of sources. Pulling up Google Scholar for results since 1975 (50 years ago) gets mixed results, with many of them in non-English languages:

That's just the first seven pages of results where the words appear literally in the search result on Google Scholar, so that isn't every result. Excluding articles written in foreign languages but including those in English using Latin italicisation (like how pontifex maximus is normally written in lower case and italicised) that's 9 Adiectums and 9 adiectums. A substantial majority that does not make. Further survey data would be appreciated. Ifly6 (talk) 14:14, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

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