Talk:Temple Mount

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Wrong language links mess

Why is "Temple Mount" article linked to the "المسجد الأقصى" (Al-Aqsa Mosque) article in Arabic?

"Temple Mount" is a hill/location in Jerusalem, and not a mosque. Currently the Al-Aqsa [article:] which is a compount, is located on it, which in its turn contains the "Al-Aqsa Mosque" [article] which is linked to "Temple Mount" in Arabic. Why?

"Temple Mount" article should be linked to "جبل المعبد" [article], which is currently redirected to "Al-Aqsa Mosque" instead. Why?

It's the "Al-Aqsa Mosque" article that should be actually linked to "المسجد الأقصى".

I am facing a lot of issues with Arabic articles which seem biased towards Islam, but it should remain neurtal. I tried to fix the links in the past, and create the relevant articles in Arabic, but they were all reverted.

Jimmyp84 (talk) 04:33, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

On the English wiki we have no control or responsibility for the content of the Arabic wiki. If there is a better choice for the interwiki link, tell us, but it has to be an article which exists. Zero^talk 06:54, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

Biggest Temenos importance

I feel like the fact it had the largest temenos in the ancient world is very important and should be mentioned in the first few paragraphs. Teym Homsi (talk) 21:20, 16 February 2025 (UTC)

Edit request 27 January 2026

Description of suggested change: I propose to add this link to the external links: What is the temple mount? Chabad.org. It is the Jewish traditional view of the temple mount. Motteleh (talk) 16:38, 27 January 2026 (UTC)

 Not done: The Chabad website is not a reliable source for general information about Judaism. Please stop adding links to it everywhere. You were previously warned about this on your talk page but are continuing with the same behavior. Day Creature (talk) 05:35, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

Canaanite?

Regarding a recent reversion made to this article by User:ADeeperUnderstanding, see discussion at Talk:Yeho'ezer ben Hosh'ayahu seal#Language. Please comment there if any objections to a link being made in this and related articles to the article Canaanite and Aramaic seal inscriptions. Onceinawhile (talk) 07:56, 21 February 2026 (UTC)

Edit request 23 March 2026

Description of suggested change: the hebrew transliteration is incorrect, it should read "Har Habayit" not "Har Hab-Bayit" the word Har means mountain and Bayit means house, with the prefix Ha meaning the, Hab doesnt mean anything. Sunshineshimmer (talk) 17:26, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

It's quite normal for the definite determiner in Semitic languages, ~like /ha/ in this case, to be separated from the following word by a dash during romanization, so the dash should remain unless there's an established practice on Wikipedia to do otherwise. But indeed I don't know why there's an extra "b" at the end of "Ha-". I'm not a speaker of Hebrew so I'll wait for now in case another knowledgeable editor knows a good reason why it's there; if not, then the first "b" should be removed. R Prazeres (talk) 18:03, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

Partly done: Yeah I'm not gonna touch the dash but after checking it seems pretty obvious to me that "hab" is a typo; sources all give it as one B. I've changed it as I'm confident about this, but as I said I didn't touch the dash so I'm marking this as partly done. ―Maltazarian ^{(talk$\lor$investigate)} 14:29, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

It's not a typo. The bet has a dagesh indicating gemination of the consonant. The gemination can be transliterated using a second "b". The first "b" sound is pronounced at the back of the first syllable, and the second at the start of the second syllable, for hab-bayit.

Gemination of a begedkefet letter in Hebrew is not typically pronounced in this way today, so hab-bayit is not a phonetic transliteration of a modern accent, and it's arguably too technical for purpose. We don't have a style-guide for these transliterations, although I've tried to organize one several times. I'm reverting for now but if anyone understands this subject and still opposes the second "b" I'm happy to go along. GordonGlottal (talk) 17:15, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

This is not my area of expertise, I was not aware of there being an actual reasoning behind it, my apologies. That being said, I cannot see "Har hab-Bayiṯ" used anywhere, but also pretty much everywhere uses "HaBayit" rather than ha-Bayiṯ so I guess my version wasn't exactly compliant with that either. Honestly I'm completely certain you know more about this than me, considering you provided a technical description of why this transliteration was used and that you've tried to get a style guide on this before. Also you're literally called "GordonGlottal". All this is to say I've got no interest in fighting you on this one. I'm glad I did the bold edit though because at least we got ourselves an answer to this thing now. ―Maltazarian ^{(talk$\lor$investigate)} 18:17, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

I second that sentiment. Thank you to all above for looking at this, thank you GordonGlottal for the explanation. No objection on my end. Cheers, R Prazeres (talk) 18:26, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

IIRC a lot of similar transliterations were added several years ago by the since-blocked @Zhomron. What we really need is a style guide. In the absence of one, I usually tell editors to use Charles Loder's hebrewtransliteration.app, which will almost always generate an accurate and consistent transliteration. GordonGlottal (talk) 18:53, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

I still feel that Hab-Bayit is incorrect. Hebrew is a modern language as well as an ancient one, and hebrew speakers don't generally write out consonants like that, even stressed ones. Additionally the dagesh in the letter here doesn't necessarily double it, because the letter bet changes sound from a "v" to a "b" when it takes a dagesh. The use of the hyphen also makes it look like two separate words with fully pronounced “b” sounds, whereas the actual pronunciation is closer to “Ha-bbayit.” Sunshineshimmer (talk) 21:17, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

It's a Biblical Hebrew phrase though, not modern. The modern word wouldn't be worth mentioning in our lede. There are two different types of dagesh. The kind that distinguishes between v/b is called dagesh lene, while the kind that distinguishes b/bb is dagesh forte. Dagesh lene is usually not transcribed in academic contexts because it has no semantic value, but dagesh forte often does. Dagesh lene in bet (v/b) is pronounced in modern accents, but dagesh forte (b/bb) is not. Modern Hebrew speakers say "habayit", but a medieval Masorete would have said "Hab-bayit".

Personally my main concern with this scheme is that it camouflages the etymology to some readers, who would recognize the definite article "ha-" but have difficulty parsing "hab-bayit". Separating out the prefix with a dash is kind of defeated by it. But probably the same people can read Hebrew script. GordonGlottal (talk) 13:01, 26 March 2026 (UTC)

Indicating gemination at the beginning of the word after definite article may be a technically correct idea, but virtually nobody does it. Even those who indicate gemination in the middle of the word write "haShabbat" and not "hashShabbat" or anything like this. Similarly, HaKotel HaMa'aravi and not hakKotel hamMa'aravi, Rosh Hashanah and not Rosh Hashshanah (both festival and Talmudic tractate etc. There's no reason to treat this transcription differently from these examples, hence "Har ha-Bayit" (of Har HaBayit, Har Habayit, whatever).--Shlomo (talk) 17:10, 30 June 2026 (UTC)

@GordonGlottal You got any input? –Maltazarian ^{ᚾparley$\lor$investigateᛅ} 23:10, 30 June 2026 (UTC)

I would definitely distinguish between ~Modern Hebrew phrases like "hakol hama'aravi" and classical phrases like "har habbayit", which it's reasonable to offer with reconstructed pronunciations. Even setting aside general rules, we know that the Secunda of Origen transliterates this exact word αββαιθ (Abbayith) with a double bet. And you can certainly find many other examples on wiki, like hašŠīrīm at Song of Songs or haq-Qŏḏāšim at Holy of Holies. I feel strongly that we shouldn't be influenced by modern pronunciations when we transliterate these phrases, but I don't have much of an opinion about how technical the reconstruction should be.

I think "Shabbat" is influenced by English phonetics; cf. the common use of "Hannukah" to indicate a long a vowel, which does not reflect gemination. GordonGlottal (talk) 00:30, 1 July 2026 (UTC)

Well, I would definitely not distinguish between them. First, I see nothing reasonable in using “reconstructed” (which intrinsicly means theoretical and almost always disputed) pronunciation as a starting point for transcription of a language which exists and in spite of some devolopement, its main body of vocabulary has remained in use until today; to such an extent that school children can read thousands year old texts and generally understand their meaning. The present Hebrew has a well documented pronunciation and even some widely accepted standards for transliteration to English. Of course the article can contain a section about history and etymology of the name, where different transcriptions can be presented; the introductory section though is not an appropriate place for presentation of infrequent or confusing name forms.

Second, I don't understand how would you distinguish a “Modern Hebrew phrase” from a “classical” one. Both “bayit” and “kotel” have been used for centuries, in fact, you can find both of them side by side in one Mishnah (Oholot 3:1 and then again 6:1). What renders one of them classic and the other one modern? What about Rosh HaShanah, Chol HaMoed, Birkat HaGomel, Eleazer HaKohen, Yehudah HaLevi etc. – are they classical or modern?

Occurences on Wikipedia can hardly serve as an argument, because there are other (and more) examples whitout doubling the first letter, and Wikipedia is not a reliable source anyway… I agree that such examples can be found outside, but they are waste minority and mostly in specialized texts on linguistics or textual critics, rarely in general descriptions.

I sincerely don't understand your point in the “Hannukah” argument: Which vowel should be long, how is it indicated, and how does it relate to the current discussion? Anyway, the transcription “Hannukah” doesn't make much sense; I assume it is a typo from “Hanukkah” (like: I remember some letter should be doubled and I guess it is the n…), the same for “Hannukkah”, which you can also find quite often. Shlomo (talk) 09:55, 3 July 2026 (UTC)

There's no reason to include an alternative Modern Hebrew name in this wiki lede. We include הר הבית only because of its status as historic/original. We should therefore offer a historic/original transliteration. By contrast, phrases which are included because of their importance/origin in Modern Hebrew should receive modern-accent transliterations. GordonGlottal (talk) 21:12, 6 July 2026 (UTC)

Hebrew should be placed before Arabic.

The Hebrew name should be put before the Arabic name, because the site is an original Jewish site and is the original and older name, the Arabic name is newer so it should be placed second also because it is a derived from the Hebrew name. The person who also put the Arabic name first has been warned for also changing names on other pages under the guise of alphabetical order but has done it for political activism and not following Wikipedia’s NPOV (see here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Prosnu#h-Avoiding_activism-20250329030900) They are the ones who made this edit too. NPOV violations under the guise of alphabetical ordering for activist purposes shouldn’t be tolerated. It was also a long standing policy of Wikipedia to have the Hebrew name before the Arabic name. ~2026-41498-53 (talk) 22:05, 25 July 2026 (UTC)