Talk:Riigikogu

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The result of the move request was: Withdrawn Finfixer (talk) 16:37, 16 July 2026 (UTC)

Riigikogu → Parliament of EstoniaParliament of Estonia – Hey editors. As of now it is is community consensus per WP:NCGAL that;

"When writing articles on government bodies or offices with native titles not in English, an English translation should be favored, except when reliable sources in the English language commonly use the native title. For example, National Assembly of Bulgaria (not Narodno sabranie) but 2003 loya jirga (not 2003 Grand Assembly) and Bundestag (not Parliament of Germany)."

I do not think this article is in line with that and should therefore be moved to Parliament of Estonia. On a quick search it is not easy to find news covering the parliament with "Riigikogu". When you do use "Parliament of Estonia news" you will find that reputable source Euronews uses "Riigikogu" but reputable sources BBC, AP news and PBS news do not. Further sourcing is scarce at best because of how rarely the body comes up. That is further reason to think that "Riikigoku" is not the common name used for this body in English. Finfixer (talk) 19:37, 13 July 2026 (UTC)

Sources;

Estonia's Parliament approves PM Kaja Kallas' 3rd Cabinet | AP News

Estonia's Reform Party starts coalition government talks | AP News

Your quick and easy guide to Estonia's general election | Euronews

Estonia election analysis: Why the liberals won, the far-right lost, and other key takeaways | Euronews

Estonian prime minister's Reform Party gains big victory in parliamentary election | PBS News

Estonia - BBC News Finfixer (talk) 19:54, 13 July 2026 (UTC)

• Oppose. Solution in search of a problem. -- Necrothesp (talk) 15:46, 14 July 2026 (UTC)

  With all due respect, how is the solution to a guideline violation in search of a problem? That sort of statement I think ought to have more in depth reasoning. Why should Riigikogu get special treatment in the absence of the criteria for special treatment laid out by consensus being met?

  I would hope this move discussion focuses on determining whether the guideline is being broken, not what it is, because that is not the point of an individual move discussion of this sort. Finfixer (talk) 19:04, 14 July 2026 (UTC)

  The guideline is not being broken (and you can't "break" a guideline in any case). WP:UE is widely misinterpreted to mean that everything should be translated into English (I really have no idea why – I speak only English myself, but I can handle names in foreign languages perfectly easily without getting all confused). But, as has been pointed out below, this name is often seen in the original language and the guideline is therefore irrelevant. -- Necrothesp (talk) 15:37, 16 July 2026 (UTC)

• Oppose, those sources (except BBC which is a topic page) use "parliament" descriptively not "Parliament of Estonia" as a proper name, but each goes on to use "Riigikogu" too, so not proving the point. Ngrams backs Riigikogu over the proposed. The parliament themselves use "Riigikogu" in English too. DankJae 00:05, 15 July 2026 (UTC)
• Oppose. Most references in English use terms like "the parliament of Estonia" or "the Estonian parliament" as descriptors, but use the native form Riigikogu as the proper term also. Other countries whose Wiki articles use the native languages for their parliaments include" the German Bundestag, the Latvian Saeima, the Lithuanian Seimas, the Icelandic Althing, the Danish Folketing, the Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada, etc. So, I don't see the necessity as I don't think there is any hard guideline. Estonian Parliament and Parliament of Estonia already redirect to the proper page. ExRat (talk) 03:49, 16 July 2026 (UTC)

  But as the consensus directs those are exceptions to the rule provided by the native name being the common name in English sources. Sources may use "Riigikogu" once to inform the reader of the native name, but if the article mostly uses "Parliament of Estonia" I don't think it works to give Riigikogu native name status. If that was so most parliament articles would have to use the native name, which is simply contrary to consensus. This is the English Wikipedia, so the use of anything but English should have a significant treshold.

  And yes, there is a hard guideline WP:NCGAL as I already pointed out in my opener. There is an above local consensus on this matter that this move is seeking to enforce. That is quasi-binding here Finfixer (talk) 09:19, 16 July 2026 (UTC)

  Or well the guideline is semi-hard because it is not official policy. It is community consensus that was propably born in an RfC. Are we to override that here?

  "When writing articles on government bodies or offices with native titles not in English, an English translation should be favored, except when reliable sources in the English language commonly use the native title. For example, National Assembly of Bulgaria (not Narodno sabranie) but 2003 loya jirga (not 2003 Grand Assembly) and Bundestag (not Parliament of Germany)."

  Thats is WP:NCGAL verbatim in relevant parts. Finfixer (talk) 09:23, 16 July 2026 (UTC)

• Oppose. Of the sources given in support of the move, AP News and PBS do use the term "Riigikogu":
  • From : "Lawmakers in the 101-seat Riigikogu legislature voted 59-38 to accept the proposed three-party Cabinet ..."
  • From : "It won 13.3% of the vote and 14 seats in Estonia’s 101-seat parliament, or Riigikogu." and "Estonia 200 /---/ failed to exceed the 5% threshold needed to enter the Riigikogu in 2019."
  • From : "Nine political parties in all fielded candidates for Estonia's 101-seat parliament, or Riigikogu."

None of those actually use the term "Parliament of Estonia", the closest is "Estonia's Parliament". The EuroNews links do not open for me, and as pointed out above, the BBC link is a topic page.

Also, as User:DankJae mentioned, Ngrams shows "Riigikogu" to be much more commonly used than "Parliament of Estonia". The picture barely changes if you add "Estonian Parliament" to the mix: . So all in all, I'm not seeing any evidence that "Riigikogu" is not the common name used in English-language sources.

Finally, the quoted section of WP:NCGAL recommends using "an English translation", however, "Parliament of Estonia" is not an English translation of "Riigikogu", but rather a generic description. A direct translation would probably be "State Assembly", but there doesn't seem to be significant English-language usage for that term (plus State Assembly is already a disambiguation page). Indrek (talk) 11:05, 16 July 2026 (UTC)

Comment. In light of the unanimous and in my opinion comprehensive rejection of the move proposal I will withdraw my proposal and close the discussion. Finfixer (talk) 16:34, 16 July 2026 (UTC)