Talk:Swamp

I find the Wikipedia article swamp and its foundation in Wikidata Q166735 quite problematic, as its definitions do not confirm the standardized use in English, e.g. in the Oxford English Dictionary. The article and Wikidata suggest that a swamp is a 'forested wetland', or, alternatively, 'riparian woodland'.

OED, however, is very decisive. A swamp is:

a tract of low-lying ground in which water collects; a piece of wet spongy ground; a marsh or bog.

The meaning 'forested wetland' is according to OED more or less obsolete, and was typical of American English during the colonization era.

Marsh, on the other hand, is defined as:

1. (a tract of) low-lying land, often flooded in wet weather and usually more or less waterlogged throughout the year;

2. [Agriculture; regional] A low-lying meadow or tract of fertile farming land requiring drainage; a stretch of grazing land near a river or the sea.

3. [Ecology]. An area of more or less permanently waterlogged mineral (rather than peaty) soil and herbaceous (rather than woody) plants.

Now, the wikidata definition and the corresponding wikipedia article may be thoroughly grounded in ecological literature (though I have some doubts here). The alleged contrast between low-lying herbaceous 'marshes' and elevated forested 'swamps' is illustrated in an often cited article by Douglas A. Wilcox et al., Lake-Level Variability and Water Availability in the Great Lakes, Reston, Virginia, 2007 (SGS Document, Circular 1311), fig. 12, p. 17.

The graph is, however, referring to the American situation, which does not correspond to the British and European context, where swamps (Sumpf, moeras, bagno) often are percieved as largely waterlogged areas, but marshes (marsh, Marschen, marais), on the other hand, as partly terrestrial wetlands or even embanked polderlands. Whereas swaps are mostly considered to be wildlands, marshes tend to be potentially available for agricultural use. This can be traced back to the (historical) etymology of both words.

The alleged contrast between swamps and marshes leads to misunderstandings when connecting to other languages, as the item swamp has been linked to typical aquatic woodland words such as German Bruch, Dutch broek, French marécage, Latin palus silvestris, Irish seascann, Breton geun (cf. gwern), Lithuanian raistas, Latvian dumbrājs, Estonian lodu, Finnish luhta^[1], Servo-Kroatian lug and Serbian шумска мочвара.^[2]

But the same time the word 'swamp' is connected to to more general words for non-forested wetlands, such as Spanish pantano, Portuguese pântano, Polish rozlewisko, Czech bažina, Albanian këneta, Farsi باتلاق, as well as non-Indoeuropean languages.

As the item 'swamp'. then, has largely been occupied by aquatic woodland words, other wetland words had to be connected (more or less misleadingly) to the item marsh (Q30198), though in fact, they refer to waterlogged (swampy) terrains. This concerns German Sumpf and its Scandinavian derivatives, Dutch moeras (though derived from French marais) and Polish bagno, which all exclusively refer to (aquatic) swamps and not to (partly terestrial) marshes.

As a consequence, several other terrestrial marshland-words could not be connected to the wikidata 'marsh' item, because their place was already taken in by 'swamp'-words. This has largely been solved by introducing a second marshland item tidal marsh (coastal marsh) Q62562206. This term is, in fact, an accurate translation of German Marschland and its derivatives in many European languages. Spanish marisma fits equally well in this tidal marsh concept.

Other words that have a more ambiguous meaning were more or less one-sidedly classified as 'marshes', though in many languages they could also be considered as synonymous for waterlogged 'swamps'. This concerns Latin palus, Italian palude, Estonian padur, Irish corcach, Servo-Kroatian močiar (and its cognates, such as Serbian мочвара and Hungarian mocsár), Russian Болото and its deratives, Turkish bataklık, and several others.

Probaby there is no fast or fair solution to this problem, which leads to mistranslations and confusion. But does anyone have am idea how to solve it?

I would suggest that reinstating a second Wikidata-item Swamp (woodland) might do the trick. This, in turn, can provide the connection to the English word 'swamp'. Subsequently, the English article swamp has to be reviewed (and probably renamed) as well, sifting out the more general 'swamp (wetland)' information and giving some attention to the difference between American and European terminilogy. The same might apply to the article marsh.

(I would rather put a direct link here to the wikidata talk page, but I don't know how to do that.) Otto S. Knottnerus (talk) 16:05, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

I agree. A wetland is not a swamp. You have demonstrated such, and so your suggestion should be enacted to reflect the exclusive singularity of a swamp and a wetland. I do not know why it is not already so. 101.191.192.117 (talk) 11:38, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

Aren't aquatic woodlands and forested wetlands "riparian zones" or "riparian forests"? Both these terms have an article on Wikipedia (when they should be combined). So I don't see why we should yet make another split. A swamp is simply a "type of wetland characterized by saturated soil and standing water, typically forested with trees and shrubs". A marshy doesn't have trees and it's grassy. Both swamps and marshes are wetlands (at least to my knowledge). Yucalyptus (talk) 09:04, 25 July 2025 (UTC)