Talk:Tractate (Talmud)
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Requested move 30 July 2025
edit- 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 after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
The result of the move request was: not moved. (closed by non-admin page mover) Jeffrey34555 (talk) 06:04, 13 August 2025 (UTC)
Masekhet → Tractate – Tractate is the common name in English. While tractate can technically refer to other things, this is the primary topic by that name. Justin Kunimune (talk) 01:25, 30 July 2025 (UTC) — Relisting. TarnishedPathtalk 02:44, 6 August 2025 (UTC)
I think this article should be moved to Tractate, since the Birnbaum book as well as the article body suggest that that's what it's commonly called in English, and this appears to be the primary topic by that name. A note in the lead and/or a hatnote should clarify that tractate can technically also refer to treatises in general, though I haven't found any examples of it actually being used this way. The disambiguation page currently at Tractate would be moved to Tractate (disambiguation). Justin Kunimune (talk) 15:29, 21 June 2025 (UTC)
- Note: WikiProject Judaism has been notified of this discussion. TarnishedPathtalk 02:44, 6 August 2025 (UTC)
- Oppose. Too generic a term. Should have been listed as a multi-move. Srnec (talk) 11:45, 7 August 2025 (UTC)
- "Tractate" is not actually a particularly generic term. While dictionaries suggest that it can be used for any treatise, I can't find a single example of someone using it outside of a Jewish context. When people say "tractate", they always mean the topic of this article. cf. the article title Minor tractate, which is not titled Minor masekhet. Justin Kunimune (talk) 23:09, 12 August 2025 (UTC)
- Oppose - beyond the malformed mutli-page move, when doing a simple search of Google Scholar we see many other uses for the term Tractate, as well as multiple dictionaries show the Jewish context as the secondary definition, not the primary. TiggerJay (talk) 03:10, 13 August 2025 (UTC)
Requested move 1 September 2025
edit- 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 after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
The result of the move request was: moved. (closed by non-admin page mover) ―Howard • 🌽33 07:36, 15 September 2025 (UTC)
Masekhet → Tractate (Talmud) – The article and its sources indicate that tractate is the English word, and masekhet is the Hebrew word. It's also worth noting that almost all of the links to this page are either piped to Tractate or immediately followed by a clarification that masekhet means tractate. Also cf. article titles such as Berakhot (tractate) and List of Talmudic tractates. I see that I was wrong to say that tractate is never used in the general sense (thank you, TiggerJay), and that this is not the primary topic. However, as per WP:COMMONNAME, we should still use the most common English name as the title – we should use parentheses to disambiguate this from the more general term. Justin Kunimune (talk) 12:36, 1 September 2025 (UTC) — Relisting. Jeffrey34555 (talk) 01:39, 8 September 2025 (UTC)
- Weak oppose per WP:NATURAL (current title has no disambiguator). Steel1943 (talk) 19:53, 2 September 2025 (UTC)
- Support per nom. I don't think the Hebrew term is commonly used in discussions or mentions of the topic in English except in perhaps extremely specialist literature that assumes everyone reading it already knows Hebrew. It's not a common loanword even in academic religious contexts, which just use "tractate". While NATURAL is a good principle, we should't use very rare-in-English terms to satisfy it; the term needs to be at least somewhat common. Google Scholar has 20 times the hits for "tractate Talmud" as "Masekhet Talmud". SnowFire (talk) 22:15, 8 September 2025 (UTC)