# Talk:Pieds-noirs

For inscrutable reasons based on unknown research someone some years ago decided that it was correct to capitalize not only Pied but also Noir, which is fundamentally wrong twice over. [Larousse  https://www.larousse.fr/encyclopedie/rechercher/Pied-Noir] redirects this spelling to the correct "pied-noir". This is about as authoritative as it gets. It seems the logic was that this is an ethnicity not a foot that is black. Um. Ethnicities are never never never capitalized in French. See: français, russe, algérien, chinois, africain. Countries are capitalized, citizenships are not. Ever. This makes my teeth hurt. The first word of a title (as of this article) is capitalized. ONLY. The article title should be Pied-noir. 
Since there is prior discussion about this on the talk page, however erroneous, I will stop correcting this pending some input, but right now would need some fairly major evidence to convince me that Larousse is wrong about this. Elinruby (talk) 21:50, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

@Elinruby: see Talk:Pied-Noir#Lowercase. JacktheBrown (talk) 17:32, 11 April 2024 (UTC)
I can't tell what you are saying. It sounds like you agree with me but think the title cannot be changed. But of course it *could* be. Resistance would be massive to "pied-noir" however, for style reasons. But I don't see why it has to be Pied-Noir. Just WRONG. But I wasn't losing any sleep over it until you reminded me of this. Incidentally, readers of this page may be interested in Regency of Algiers, not that it has anything to do with the question at hand. There were no pieds-noirs until after that period. Elinruby (talk) 17:46, 11 April 2024 (UTC)
@Elinruby: yes, I meant that no one seems to agree to change the title. JacktheBrown (talk) 17:56, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

I would also like to point out that this article has problems with the singular and plural forms of the terms "Pied-Noir" (singular form) and "Pieds-Noirs" (plural form); some sentences may require the singular form instead of the plural form, while others may require the plural form instead of the singular form. Several corrections may be necessary. JacktheBrown (talk) 17:39, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

WP:SOFIXIT. Dicklyon (talk) 00:45, 15 April 2024 (UTC)
@Dicklyon: I think (with all due respect to other users) I'm one of the bravest users of this encyclopedia, especially after I stopped asking questions at the help desk (now one every two months). I just wanted to report the problem here. JacktheBrown (talk) 02:06, 15 April 2024 (UTC)
Yes, you've been pretty bold, I agree. Dicklyon (talk) 02:09, 15 April 2024 (UTC)
I am notorious for rushing in where angels fear to tread and I given the reluctance to read definitions that is in display in this RM I would myself hesitate to correct anything in this article.Elinruby (talk) 18:45, 15 April 2024 (UTC)
Cf. my big block of source-usage review in the thread above this. The plural is overwhelmingly Pieds-noirs and the singular (and adjective) Pied-noir (capitalization questions aside), with Pied-noirs barely ever attested, and Pieds-noir unattested, across a pretty big number of high-quality (and English-language) sources.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  04:54, 16 April 2024 (UTC)
I did see it and thank you for the thoughtful answer.
I read MoS as saying that for words derived from French, a loanword should follow the conventions for English, Otherwise, untranslated French that is not a loanword or a proper noun should follow French-language conventions. Is that right? I note that you are the primary author of that MoS page. If this descriptor does in fact fall under French conventions, then both "pied" and "noir" would absolutely take an s in the plural. Adjectives are modified by their nouns and take on their number and gender. There is simply no question about that. I haven't seen this particular term enough to have strong feelings about whether the hyphenated form is "correct". I myself as a French speaker am inclined to hyphenate it, in order to clarify that we are not talking about actual feet, but I am not maintaining that this is the One True Answer, and did not do so consistently in the discussion above, mostly because I am lazy, usually in a hurry, and grinding my teeth over the capitals not the hyphen. It is clear I am talking about the topic of this discussion on this page. I realize that I am basing these statements on French grammar and not on sources, but I do think it is good to be grammatical, and that we should not necessarily discount the Wikipedia effect on the sources. It is possible that people are capitalizing because they think we know something about this ;) Also, other people here have already looked at sources but it's been quite a long time since I said, further up the page, that iff the question is what the French conventions are, then Larousse = OED pretty much. I hope that helps someone somehow; that's all I've got.
Some people do appear to believe that it is a loanword or a proper noun however. I think that you said that it is not a proper noun (please correct me if I am wrong about that, and tell me what you do in fact think) but I am especially interested in whether you think it is a loanword, if you don't mind explaining that. I have been saying no, because while it's obviously imported from French, it is used in only this one niche context. And the reactions here indicate that many if not most English speakers have never encountered it. But that part I possibly could be wrong about. Similarly, it seems to me that we are talking about a group of people, sure. but not an ethnic group or a group of residents of a particular city as in Washingtonians or Oregonian. I think the definition you gave above for the group is pretty much correct, but I do not claim any particular expertise about them,
What do you think?
Incidentally, I don't think American Blacks are a good analogy, since French speakers would have no expectation of capitalization, nor association of it with personhood the way an English speaker might, but urging caution on that front is a better argument than most as these things go. It is true that the vast majority of French speakers would have some familiarity with the English language, especially any that wind up reading this article. Elinruby (talk) 04:03, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

This article is hopelessly biased in favour of the settlers. It is not written by a native English speaker and makes no mention whatsoever of the Sétif and Guelma massacres (1945) and the general campaign launched by France to terrorize and massacre Algerians, with even the French navy and air force shelling and bombing civilians on what was on paper French territory. This article falsely tells the reader that the violence began with the "first armed operations" of the FLN in 1954 instead of with French organised massacres of Algerians in 1945 as happened in reality. The torture regime of the French also goes without mention, Gen. Massu (a war criminal) is depicted as a man who only tried to maintain public order. Later the OAS is merely "accused" of murders and bombings.How on earth has this a 'good article' rating?
31.20.246.162 (talk) 16:43, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

@Elinruby: do you think we should change one or more sentences within this article? I pinged you because we're both interested in this (French) topic. JacktheBrown (talk) 21:32, 20 July 2024 (UTC)
The material just added to the pied-noir article is largely focused on atrocities committed by the French military during the Algerian War of 1954-62. These are covered in detail in several other Wikipedia articles and should not be given prominence in the history of a sizeable civilian community (of French, Spanish, Jewish and Maltese origins) over a period of 130 years. Buistr (talk) 22:06, 20 July 2024 (UTC)
(pinged) It is quite likely that this article was translated from French with its chavinisms intact. It is also possible that the person complaining below about undue may have a point, though it is hard to get other people to see it that point when atrocities are involved. This is not a topic I have exactly studied, but the amount of anger I am hearing does not seem like a good place to start a discussion Elinruby (talk) 05:55, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

For the record, I just took a look at the article history and see that I have quite a few edits there. These would have been translation from the French article though, or a huge copyedit -- I am not particularly knowledgeable in this history. I do find it quite plausible from the rest of ehat I know that the French version of events is missing some details, though. Elinruby (talk) 13:02, 24 July 2024 (UTC)
as for how it for a good article rating, well. Presumably the reviewer didn't know that history was missing.  You are allowed to contest that rating, btw. Elinruby (talk) 06:45, 22 July 2024 (UTC)
I have started a new discussion; see: Talk:Pieds-noirs#Removal of the "Good article" template. JacktheBrown (talk) 07:57, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

Although this is a good article in terms of structure, it was largely translated from the French language Wikipedia and, no offence (I consider fr.wiki the second best Wikipedia; the first is the English language Wikipedia, en.wiki), the fr.wiki page is quite biased in favour of France. JacktheBrown (talk) 07:53, 22 July 2024 (UTC)
See instructions here: [15] Elinruby (talk) 09:30, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

I propose the activation of a bot to change all the "Pied-Noir" and "Pieds-Noirs" terms present in the encyclopedia; from "Pied-Noir" to "pied-noir" and from "Pieds-Noirs" to "pieds-noirs". I honestly don't understand why, almost always, only the terms of the page on which the agreement was reached are changed. By working in this way, unfortunately, the encyclopedia loses value (some users claim that these changes are pointless, superfluous and trivial (absurd...), but when this becomes a habit, the errors become numerous). JacktheBrown (talk) 06:08, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

Does anyone know which of these flags (if any) are in common use, vs. which were just created by some private citizen and uploaded to the Flags of the World website? Prezbo (talk) 22:17, 9 June 2025 (UTC)

@Prezbo: what do you mean by "no, it's not"? Are you suggesting I'm lying? M.Bitton (talk) 23:06, 9 June 2025 (UTC)

Or mistaken/misunderstanding, more likely. See below. Prezbo (talk) 23:08, 9 June 2025 (UTC)

I'm not French. Is this a nationalist idea with a real social movement behind it, or a microstate with a website? It looks a lot like the latter, in which case I don't think Wikipedia should cover it. Coverage in secondary sources, which is what Wkipedia articles are supposed to be primarily based on, would convince me otherwise. Prezbo (talk) 23:08, 9 June 2025 (UTC)

It had its own article, which was merged with one (because some editors felt that it wasn't notable enough). I will add some secondary sources. M.Bitton (talk) 23:11, 9 June 2025 (UTC)