Talk:Parliament of Finland

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Comments

201 members are elected (200 from Finland and one from Åland). The parliament consists of 201 members, (200 regular representatives and the speaker). -- Cimon Avaro on a pogostick — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cimon Avaro (talk • contribs) 20:25, 18 August 2003 (UTC)[reply]

But isn't Ålands MP counted in the 200? See for instance here, just clik on "kaikki", it shows 200 MPs, one of them from Åland. And it includes the speaker too. Where did the 201st MP go? -- Jniemenmaa 20:46, 18 August 2003 (UTC)[reply]

You were right.

I even hand counted the members in the seating arrangement. I remember a time however, when the youngest member could not take her seat until the Speaker left to join the President on the dais at the formal opening of parliament. I guess they got bored with that. Now they have an empty chair instead... -- Cimon Avaro on a pogo-stick 03:36, 19 August 2003 (UTC)[reply]

Hey, no problem. I've heard the 201 figure before and I wasn't that certain myself. Allthough the Eduskunta website clearly says 200, I always assumed the same thing you did. Also at election time they TV commentators allways emphasise the "extra member" from Åland. -- Jniemenmaa 08:50, 19 August 2003 (UTC)[reply]

Name change to native

The name of this article should indeed not be the English descriptor but the actual name of the institution the article covers. See corresponding articles about the parliament of Denmark Folketing and the parliament of Sweden Riksdag. Let’s make this one about the parliament of Finland be entitled what it actually is, Eduskunta. Pessimistipasta (talk) 10:35, 20 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

It doesn't appear that English-language sources regularly use the term. As such, it would fail WP:USEENGLISH. Also, given the lack of consensus from the previous discussion above, it would be better to file a new RM rather than unilaterally moving the page. --Paul_012 (talk) 20:07, 20 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Alright, good call. Let’s talk about this in the new section that recently opened. Pessimistipasta (talk) 22:45, 20 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move 20 October 2017

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: not moved. Andrewa (talk) 06:13, 28 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Parliament of Finland → EduskuntaEduskunta – As Finland is officially a non-English-speaking country, it seems short-sighted to have an unofficial English name as the name of this article. Respective articles about parliaments abroad follow a logical pattern: the name of the article is the name of the parliament in the majority native language (see: Folketing, Riksdag, Althing). The most obvious reason for this is that Finland does not have an institution literally called ’Parliament’. We’ve got an eduskunta, and for the sake of both truthfulness and loyalty to abiding by widely-used practices, let’s name this article that. Pessimistipasta (talk) 21:15, 20 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Survey

Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *'''Support''' or *'''Oppose''', then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's policy on article titles.

Oppose per WP:UE. Also, Finland has two official languages, so if you really want to play the "official names" card, you would have to rename the page to the long-winded "Eduskunta/Riksdagen". The current title is also more accessible to English-speakers. Academicoffee71 (talk) 02:52, 24 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

There are similar cases, such as with Estonia (Riigikogu), wherein the name of the English Wikipedia page is in Estonian, even though the country has a more significant Russian-speaking minority (24% of population); the same can be applied for Finland's Swedish-speaking minority, which accounts for only 5%. Furthermore, as Swedish Finns tend to comprehend Finnish, naming the article by the actual institution's name in one language only is not a problem in that regard. Putting "Riksdag" in the title would violate WP:CRITERIA, as it may cause confusion with the already-established article Riksdag, which is similarly an article about a country's parliament named after said country's majority language. WP:CRITERIA also recommends using a title that's as concise as possible, as long as it retains its character and recognizability. This graph shows that while the use of "Finnish parliament" has at some points been more used in English-language books, "Eduskunta" is much more common in both contemporary and overall measures. Therefore, to be concise and mindful of the status quo of naming European parliaments, this should be renamed. Pessimistipasta (talk) 09:57, 25 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

All of those parliaments should be moved to their English titles, then. Academicoffee71 (talk) 04:24, 26 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Irrelevant. As said before, the use of the word ”Eduskunta” is far more common than ”Finnish parliament” or ”parliament of Finland” in English language sources. Pessimistipasta (talk) 20:04, 26 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose. No evidence that "Eduskunta" is in established use in English sources, which is in contrast to "Riksdag".--Cúchullain ^t/c 19:59, 27 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Not true as per the graph provided above. Eduskunta has a wider use than other forms in English language sources. Why do you feel that this article should diverge in naming practice from the enwiki pages of the parliaments of Iceland (Althing), Norway (Storting), Denmark (Folketing), and Sweden (Riksdag)? Pessimistipasta (talk) 20:26, 27 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

A Google News search didn't bear that out at all, I found very few English sources that used the name, but many for "parliament of Finland", "Finnish parliament", "Finland's parliament", etc.[1] Not sure about the others, but with Riksdag, it was shown that that name is well established in English sources in this RM.--Cúchullain ^t/c 20:35, 27 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose At least I'm inclined to. National legislatures in a parliamentary system are usually simply called parliament in English; Althing and Riksdag are often exceptions, largely for historical reasons (which I'll comment on). I see some English sources do use Eduskunta (The Economist, with explanation) but most news sources don't and most history books don't (on a quick look through histories on GBooks, I only found it in citations sections). The legislature's seat is usually referred to in English as the Parliament House/Building (see [2][3] and other tourist guides), and the English official site of the Eduskunta uses Parliament in the text.

I know this is not perfectly consistent with using Riksdag and Althing, and it certainly isn't consistent with Finnish-language usage of parliamentti. However, Althing is used because the current parliament is considered the direct successor to the popular assembly of the 11th century; the Icelandic legislature is fairly widely known by its native name and is a different case from the rest. Riksdag is used since the word has cognates in royal+diet rather than parliament and because of the Swedish legislature's history as a feudal diet of estates. While the Finnish national legislature did have a predecessor in the Diet of Finland, as established in 1906 it is considered a clean break from the past, so the Eduskunta can be fairly considered more of a parliament than the Swedish Riksdag in the rest of the world, apart from the rest of the world not paying that much attention to the details. And none of this really matters, because there's nothing that forces English usage or our attempts to reflect mixed usage to be consistent in this way. —innotata 22:02, 27 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

Any additional comments:

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Solemn oath

Is the current solemn oath in the Sessions section misleading? Last I checked, MPs don't use English in Parliament, ever. We could either omit it by just mentioning its existence, or just keep it intact. Pessimistipasta (talk) 11:23, 27 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]