Talk:Magellan-Elcano circumnavigation

FTT in 2019?

This voyage, one of the most notable in history, took off from Seville on August 10, 1519 (and sailed out to the Atlantic on September 20). Let's celebrate the 500th anniversary of this journey by writing a really brilliant itinerary and featuring it in July, August or September 2019! ϒpsilon (talk) 18:30, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

Would like to hear some opinions about this article, what would you like to see in the article that is still missing before it can be upgraded to guide and nominated for FTT? --ϒpsilon (talk) 14:06, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

I think featuring the article for the 500th anniversary of the journey is a great idea. It would be good to add suggested sights to see in or near some of the destinations. Are there any historic sites, museums, or nature reserves that could give travellers an idea of what these places looked like in Magellan's time? Or monuments/memorials—the article mentions the one in Sanlúcar, but are there any others along the way? Maybe not, I don't know.

It would also be nice to connect the dots on the map with a line to show the route a little more clearly. I don't know if there's an easy way to do that—I played around with Template:mapshape a little but couldn't get it to work. I don't think this is needed for guide status, but it would be nice to do if anyone knows how.

Also, if there are any good books about the circumnavigation, it would be nice to mention them in the "Understand" section. Not necessary for guide status, though. —Granger (talk · contribs) 15:16, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for the comment, good suggestions. The photos in the article mention the replica of one of the expedition's ships in Puerto San Julián and a memorial of Magellan and cheif Lapu Lapu in Lapu-Lapu. But there are probably more of them.

Routes are possible to make with the new version of the dynamic map too (Trans-Siberian Railway has them) but I don't know how to do it. Grabbing the code from the end of the Trans-Siberian Railway article and replacing the coordinates might do the job. ϒpsilon (talk) 15:44, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

Sights added! :) ϒpsilon (talk) 19:27, 8 July 2018 (UTC)

Great idea. Pashley (talk) 20:54, 8 July 2018 (UTC)

Now nominated at Wikivoyage:Destination_of_the_month_candidates#Magellan-Elcano_circumnavigation Pashley (talk) 02:24, 9 July 2018 (UTC)

Sources

Going to add some information to the article over the next week, will mostly use w:Ferdinand_Magellan, w:sv:Första_världsomseglingen and [1] to write the story of the journey. Then our destination articles and Wikipedia's airport articles for information on following their itinerary in the present day. --ϒpsilon (talk) 17:17, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

Name

I want to move this to "Magellan expedition", the common term in English. I realise the current title is more precise, & technically correct, but I find it painfully & unnecessarily clumsy. Other opinions? Pashley (talk) 08:46, 25 March 2017 (UTC)

I think we should give Elcano the recognition he deserves and so rarely gets and what's wrong with being correct? Hobbitschuster (talk) 13:22, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

I absolutely agree. If not for Elcano, there wouldn't have been anything close to a circumnavigation of the world. Ikan Kekek (talk) 01:49, 6 August 2018 (UTC)

But the name is still very clumsy, and quite serious. Why not something more informal like Magellan and Elcano's voyage around the world? It's longer, but easier to read and pronounce. ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 11:56, 3 August 2019 (UTC)

Sure, or their round-the-world voyage. Yes, it reads better. Ikan Kekek (talk) 18:36, 3 August 2019 (UTC)

I do not think that is much of an improvement. We should either follow the policy of using a common English name & move it to "Magellan expedition" or leave it where it is, with the existing redirect at Magellan. Pashley (talk) 20:33, 3 August 2019 (UTC)

Verb tenses

There are two legitimate ways to recount past events in English, either the past tense (I was walking down the street when I ran into Fred and he said ...) or the "narrative present", w:Historical_present, (I'm walking down the street when I run into Fred and he says ...). My intution is that the latter is less formal, but I'm not certain what the precise rules are & am not about to research that.

This article mixes the two in a way I think is problematic, sometimes even using both past & present tenses in the same sentence. I think we should try to be more consistent. My choice would be to use narrative present for all the actual account of events during the voyage, and past tense for the framing text (Magellan was born ... joined the fleet ....). What do others think? Pashley (talk) 11:06, 17 June 2017 (UTC)

This is still a problem. For example the text on Palawan has "The crew was very happy to find an island to replenish their food stock. Here they meet some Moro (Filipino Muslim) pilots who guide them onwards through the shallow waters." I think we need to make choice of tense and edit the article to make it consistent before this can be a featured topic. Pashley (talk) 15:09, 9 July 2018 (UTC)

It's simplest and most intuitive to use past tense for accounts of past events. Doing so also establishes a clearer, more natural contrast between the historical accounts and present-day travel recommendations and other commentary. I hope you don't mind that I've been putting stuff into past tense when it's struck me as important to do so. Ikan Kekek (talk) 01:34, 6 August 2018 (UTC)

I certainly don't mind. The voyage could be recounted in either past tense or narrative present; I have a mild preference for the latter but either is legitimate in terms of both grammar & style. My concern is consistency; I don't think we should mix the two as the current text does. Pashley (talk) 12:02, 6 August 2018 (UTC)

The article is currently featured, but the problem remains. All of Magellan-Elcano_circumnavigation#1519 is recounted in the 'historical present', but then Magellan-Elcano_circumnavigation#1520 uses past tense & later sections use both. Pashley (talk) 15:56, 3 August 2019 (UTC)

The article isn't featured yet (the Vikings article is FTT right now), but will soon be. I wrote most of the article and am responsible for the problem, so I will take care of it right away. Will put everything into past tense.

Tangentially, in Talk:RMS Titanic there's also a current discussion about present tense being used for a historical event. Ypsilon (talk) 16:31, 3 August 2019 (UTC)

Done Ypsilon (talk) 16:57, 3 August 2019 (UTC)

Cannibalism?

A Filipino on a mailing list I am on claimed "My ancestors ate Magellan" and I do not think he was joking. Web search indicates there was cannibalism in the Philippines at one time, but it was never as central to the culture as in some parts of the South Pacific. I cannot find anything specifically about the Magellan expedition or even the relevant time period.

Does anyone know more? If this could be confirmed, then it would be worth adding to the article. Pashley (talk) 11:51, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

If I search for that particular turn of phrase, it does turn up on joke sites, cited to "Elvis Presley's Pharmacist Was My Sunday School Teacher" ISBN 9780882405124 but that doesn't tell me whether the history is plausible. K7L (talk) 02:09, 9 July 2017 (UTC)

Ask Wikipedia :) w:Ferdinand_Magellan#Death_in_the_Philippines - He was killed by the natives in what is now the Phillipines, and apparently his body kept by the local king as a 'war trophy'. That doesn't exclude any potential cannibalistic acts, but I would say it is more likely an embellishment of the original story. --Andrewssi2 (talk) 03:52, 9 July 2017 (UTC)

If true, it ought to be added to the stay safe section... --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 17:18, 3 August 2019 (UTC)

I don't think cannibalism is a problem in the Philippines in the 21st century. Ypsilon (talk) 17:35, 3 August 2019 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:

• Lapu-Lapu.jpg

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 21:54, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

Pronunciation?

I {Canadian) follow my high school history teacher in pronouncing Magellan with a soft 'g' (as in "Gerry") but a Brit I know insists it must be a hard 'g' (as in "good"). Which is correct, or is this just a dialect difference?

Not that it necessarily determines the correct English pronunciation — for example, no English speaker says Paris or Montreal as a French speaker would — but I wonder how it is pronounced in Portuguese or Spanish. User:Ibaman? Pashley (talk) 04:29, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

this bloke was born Portuguese actually, his original name is Fernão de Magalhães. The G is the hard one from "good". As for me speaking English, I always say "Maghellan" and never "Madjellan".Ibaman (talk) 13:35, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

In 21st century Spanish the combination <ge> is always pronounced /xe/, but I think that may have been different during Magellan's lifetime... Hobbitschuster (talk) 19:09, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

The Magellan spelling doesn't seem to be Spanish. The Wikipedia article in Spanish is w:Fernando de Magallanes, the one in Portuguese w:Fernão de Magalhães, and the form Magellan isn't mentioned in those, other than in reference to the name in English. Note that <ga> (as in those other names) indeed is pronounced with a hard G. What's the history of the form Magellan? It seems to be used in most languages. –LPfi (talk) 08:57, 27 October 2024 (UTC)