Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Aryan valley

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep. Those advocating Keeping this article have put together a formidable argument. While the name maybe "made-up", it is being used which I believe makes it valid as an identification. Plus, this article can not be redirect or merged to Brokpa people as that page is a redirect, not an article, which redirects to Brokpa which is an ethnic group, not a place. There has also been substantial argument that this location and Brokpa are two distinct and different elements so Merging would not be the best solution. If there is disagreement about the page title or the article content, that can be resolved on the article talk page or in one of our dispute resolution processes. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 03:05, 2 January 2023 (UTC)

Aryan valley

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Aryan valley (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)

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This is really a non-topic. The term "Aryan Valley" has been invented by the tourist industry to capitalise on the supposed "Aryanness" of the Brokpa people in Ladakh. Since they speak an Indo-Aryan language even though in the middle of a Tibetic-speaking region, the British chose to refer to them as "Aryans". More than half of India and Pakistan speaks Indo-Aryan languages. So there is nothing special here. A recent paper explained the problem saying, "A strong rumour persists which claims the Brokpa belong to 'pure Aryan stock' and this is accounted in sensational newspaper stories and documentaries on the internet, with rumours claiming that westerners come to Leh in search of the Brokpa, to have a pure Aryan child born to them." The paper did a genetic search for the supposed "Aryan genes" in this population, and didn't find many. They found South Indian "Dravidian genes", though.

Whatever can be salvaged from this page can be added to Brokpa people. There is no need for this page at all. Kautilya3 (talk) 23:22, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

References

• Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Ethnic groups, History, Popular culture, Buddhism, Geography, India, and Ladakh. Kautilya3 (talk) 23:22, 23 December 2022 (UTC)
• Keep - This article is about a location, and the sources in the article show notability per WP:GNG and as a populated place it has notability through WP:GEOLAND. It would be improper to merge a geographical article into an article about an ethnic group. The region exists and is defined by reliable sources; that the nom suggests it was "invented by the tourist industry" does not override the notability established by reliable sources. The genetics of its inhabitants similarly does not detract from the notability of the subject. The article certainly needs work, but deletion is not a solution to any of the issues brought up. - Aoidh (talk) 00:05, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

Aoidh, you have provided only one source, and it does not satisy the significant coverage criterion, because there are only passing mentions of "Aryan valley" put in quotation marks. It is also doubtful if it is reliable, because newspaper articles are only reliable for news, not ethnography. We need a minimum of two reliable sources with signiicant coverage to meet WP:GNG. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 18:11, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

You made that rule up ;) The article needs sourcing for this *name*, and no, it doesn't need to be in an ethnology journal. Elinruby (talk) 18:30, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

See WP:NEWSORG. See WP:CONTEXTMATTERS. A newspaper article claiming certain groups to be "Aryan" carries no weight whatsover, especially when scholarly sources have denied it. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 18:41, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

I provided one source because the rest are in the article and very clearly show notability. With that article I shared above, the entire article is about that area by that name; that it only uses that name once does not matter, its about the article's subject. That coverage could not be more significant. This entire piece is about the article's subject. Here is a book source that goes into some detail. Here is a piece from the Journal of the Anthropological Society of India. I'm not going to just list examples but they are numerous, and more than sufficient to show notability through WP:GNG and WP:GEOLAND. There is significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject, which is exactly what WP:GNG looks for. If your issue is with the specific name then that's an WP:RM issue, not an WP:AFD one. There is no reason to delete this article. - Aoidh (talk) 02:01, 25 December 2022 (UTC)

Whatever you mean by "signficant coverage", it cannot possibly mean one-sentence or half-a-sentence mentions. Tht is what you find in your first source and your third source. Your second source has a few more mentions, but it is an anthropological study that is describing how the people are using the term; the scholar is not using it or descrbing it. For example, she says:

Soon after their villages were thrown open to tourism, Brogpa travel agents, either independently or in collaboration with more established tourist companies, organized packaged tours to explore the "Aryan Valley".

You cannot possibly derive a Wikipedia page out of such mentions. In summary, you have produced nothing of use here, and your claim of WP:GNG is wholly unsubstantiated. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 18:34, 25 December 2022 (UTC)

It seems like you're reading only the abstract of this, because it has much more than a single sentence. Here is yet another with significant coverage; it's not hard to find many sources that detail this subject with much more than enough coverage to easily meet WP:GNG. I'm not sure how downplaying the one study as an anthropological study that is describing how the people are using the term somehow diminishes its significant coverage of the subject; it is precisely the type of source that the article needs and unambiguously contributes to the well-established notability of the subject. Remove this fine, there's still multiple sources with significant coverage of the article's subject, even if one of them is merely anthropological, as if that's a bad thing. The argument that the sources available for this subject lack significant coverage is not a persuasive one, especially if you take the time to look for sources not listed in the article. - Aoidh (talk) 23:40, 25 December 2022 (UTC)

I am quite confused as to why Kautilya3 is now dismissing an anthropological study, after telling me that news stories < scholarly sources, which is of course a good rule of thumb, but does not for all of that preclude the use of news sources. This editor has for example been edit-warring to keep Al-Jazeera out of Brokpa, even though it is a reliable source all day long, not to mention reverting sourced additions as "OR". This would seem to be inconsistent. AGF, it is possible that the editor is worried about the admittedly awful use that was made of the term "Aryan" in the late 19th and early 20th century, and is under the impression that Minaro123 wants to endorse this origin story, which is not the case. It is simply the name someone else gave his language group ;) Yet the best explanation I can conceive of for what is going on here is that he's being held responsible for its appropriation by crazy people a hundred years ago. Admittedly he is new and on his fourth or fifth language and therefore somewhat difficult to understand at times, not to mention only just now beginning to understand reliable sources since someone has taken the trouble to explain the policy to him. I don't see Kautilya3 making any effort to collaborate however.

It takes more than dismissiveness to AfD an article, and beyond the genetics discussion that Kautilya3 seems to want Brokpa to be, there is a great deal that can be said about the identity as an economic initiative, about the politics of sovereignty in Kashmir, about the fragmentation of an endangered language, about the Line of Control, which goes right past some of these villages and has split families up with members on both sides, about initiatives to preserve the culture and about a proliferation of microbusinesses around this renaming. All of this can be done while explicitly repudiating neo-Nazis and refraining from making the article into some sort of promo booking site. I do also think that Kautilya3 should refresh her understanding of the RS and NPOV policies. Being written about by anthropologists does not preclude a cultural isolate from being a living breathing community of individuals who farm, choose sides in a conflict or run for office. If Kautilya3 wishes her article to purely focus on the anthropological body of work, then fine: another article can quite legitimately focus on the other aspects of the community, especially when there's a completely different nomenclature. OWNership is not a healthy trait in one article, let alone when someone is insisting that it should be the *only* article. Elinruby (talk) 11:27, 26 December 2022 (UTC)

Elinruby, I suggest you read about the Use–mention distinction. If a scholar is mentioning a term, attributed to somebody else, it does not mean that the scholar is using that term, and claim that it establishes notability for your topic. You are either completely misunderstanding what the sources are saying or deliberately misrepresenting them. If you try to write a small paragraph to accurately summarise the sources that are being presented here, you will see for yourself the fallacies of your own arguments. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 14:52, 26 December 2022 (UTC)

@Kautilya3: I think you completely misunderstand a number of things starting with Wikipedia policy and the intended scope of the article. But out of curiosity, what is your objection to Resisting Occupation in Kashmir? You don't like news articles, you don't like anthropology, shrug. You're very hard to please and you keep shifting the goal posts. I personally don't think it matters whether the name meets with your approval. I dislike quite a number of place names. But if a government refers to a place under its jurisdiction as x, and in this case it is established that it does, then that is an aspect of its identity, whether we approve of the name or not. The NPOV way to deal with this is to explain the controversy. It may be appropriate in a Wikipedia article to also mention a traditional name, or to create a separate article on the place's niche in the local cosmology as the ancestral homeland of a given community, for example, but that will have nothing to do with the microfinance programs of the local development bank, or the constitutional authority of the local legislative body. I think it is time for you to drop the stick and back away from the horse. You are imposing normative judgements that you perceive to be correct but are not, and would in any event not be a reason to AfD the article. You are supposed to search for sources before you nominate an article for deletion, and in this case they are thick on the ground Elinruby (talk) 15:49, 26 December 2022 (UTC)

• Comment: @Kautilya3: and yet none of this is in the article? I see an extensive discussion of a local origin story, but nothing at all about this. Is there something that distinguishes the people of this area from other Brokpa people? If not, perhaps what you are describing should be an article about the racist myth? Elinruby (talk) 01:07, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

• Followup comment I am beginning to see why the OP objects to the article. This seems relevant: [1]. However the people and the places and the mythology appear after a start at some due diligence to be quite real, whereas the article title appears to have elements of some sort of racialized promo. But this is not a reason to delete it. We write about such things, we don't censor them, right? There is indeed such an initiative. Still doing some work on the article. Could use some opinions on whether the Indian Express and the above journal are RS. There are a couple of others that seem not to be. Doing a BEFORE search and It looks promising. Elinruby (talk) 10:53, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

Also here: [2]. Have not tried to incorporate this more nuanced narrative yet; still doing a copy-edit and wikilink check. Elinruby (talk) 11:16, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

• Elinruby, please note that an AfD discussion is about the validity/notability of a topic, not about the content of a page. Since the page on Brokpa people is present and will remain forever, the only reason to keep this page would involve some content that cannot possibly fit on the Brokpa people page. What is it? -- Kautilya3 (talk) 13:08, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

• I currently have no opinion on the matter -- notice that I have not voted -- but there seems to be some controversy on the subject. I just left a plethora of questions on the article talk page; you are of course free to chime in. As a rule of thumb, where there is a controversy, we explain both sides of it. We don't dismiss one side of it. Do I misunderstand your issue with the article? I will not be offended if the answer is yes ;) Elinruby (talk) 13:17, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

Please see WP:ATAD.Thanks, TrangaBellam (talk) 20:24, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

Comment: @Kautilya3: Comment: keep . The dna result also says "The mtDNA profile shows a predominance of mtDNA HG A4 that must have arrived from outside the Indian subcontinent. " Please don't just keep a one side of a story . And maybe for having some percentage of a Indian subcontinent gene they have got mixed with the local population by living in Indian subcontinent for thousand of year . The dna results doesn't says that they have a dravadian gene , rather it says they have a some percentage of gene which is also found in South Indian and other part of Indian subcontinent like jammu etc. Background stories : 1:Last time kautilya3 have reverted my edit on Brokpa page because you were adding a fake cencus of Brokpa people which was somewhere around 50, thousand. But after I showed you many reference and these things was discuss with many wikepedian and finally you has to step back and change the population which was somewhere between 3000- 4000.The discussion could be easily check at the page of Brokpa page and Brokpa,Drokpa,Dard, and Shin 2: My personal opinion: Please these need a special investigation , kautilya3 has always change the Brokpa page according to his opinion, though we have presented a reliable resources ,but he always step back. 3: Aryan valley is not a tourist made name ,it is just a opinion of few people and including kautilya3 , Aryan valley is using by the Indian administration like government officials in their website as well as by reliable newspaper by Indian Express. commmet 2 ': @Kautilya3: Comment: keep the Aryan valley page . All the sentence of Aryan valley page is cited with reliable book by popular writer and reliable news like Indian Express , It is unfair to delete a page of a region and adding it to a ethic group page , though the Brokpa ethnic group also is according to your opinion, you cherry pick whether which sentence should be there and which sentence should not be there and you add a reference according to you . Though , popular reference book and newspaper cited that Brokpa area believed to be a decendent of Alexander the great , but you always deleted that sentence and it's relaible reference . Keep the Aryan valley page because it deserves. I think kautilya3 has a personal enemy with the Aryan valley na Brokpa people, because he don't cited the popular theory of relaible source .he only cherry pick the sentence according to him. Please kautilya3 avoid having personal attack in Brokpa like saying a false statement like " Brokpa has a dravadian gene" which is not true , since Brokpa lived in these Indian subcontinent for hundred of year,they have a gene Which is found in South India and places like jammu . And according to the dna result : Brokpa also suggested a predominance gene which must have arrived from Indian subcontinent. comment 3: Even though ,It is just a theory about their origin and migrated by popular anthropology, we are not here to varify whether they Brokpa are indeed the decendent of Alexander or not . We are here to discuss about a region which is Aryan valley. Now ,the every sentence of Aryan valley is cited with reliable sources and this wikepedia article could be verified easily . So , just look at the citation and close the topic. -- — Preceding unsigned comment added by Minaro123 (talk • contribs) Uh, no. The references do need work as I have been telling you at great length. Have you read the WP:RS page yet? It's very important that you do that. I think it *can* be sourced but you are not there yet. Elinruby (talk) 18:27, 24 December 2022 (UTC) Minaro123, I have warned you to desist from making personal attacks. I don't have any "enmity" to the Brokpa people. I am in fact the main author of the Brokpa page. I only object to the "Aryan" propaganda that you apparently subscribe to. Contrary to your claims, the journal article cited above, summarily disproves the "Aryan" claims. Should the Brokpa be an offshoot of early “Aryan”/IE speakers, the R1a1-M17 clade would be expected to occur at a high frequency among them. In fact, however, the Brokpa showed low frequencies of NRY-HG-R1a1(M17) (8%). It also says: ... (various pieces of evidence), all suggest that Brokpa male ancestors might have originated from a deep Indian/south Indian ancestry. So, please stop this propaganda. Wikipedia is not the place for it. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 18:38, 24 December 2022 (UTC) @Kautilya3: Conclusion "The Y chromosomal studies suggest the Brokpa to be pre-Vedic settlers of the Himalayas, 9000 ybp, with an isolated evolution. The mtDNA profile shows a predominance of mtDNA HG A4 that must have arrived from outside the Indian subcontinent." Please don't show me a one section , why are you hasitate go show me the statement " shows has a gene of mtDNA HG A4 which must have reached out side of India " . Please don't do cherry picking . And stop bullying . You were not the first Creator of Brokpa page and secondly , After I repeatedly deleting the fake cencus and adding a discussion in talk section of Brokpa , you had to listen me and you needed to step back and changed population to 3000- 4000. Whenever I added any statement like " Brokpa believed to be a decendent of Alexander the great " cited by aljezerra , atlas of humanity , and other reliable book .,you always deleted it and even though everyone can edit the wikepedia with relaible source, but just because you has more number of edit doesn't mean that you are always true,on the other hand the Westerner wikepedian editor , and other countries wikepedian are very friendly and they never deleted such statement ,but you always do a bully to new editor even though they provided reliable source, Wikepedia is independent, autocratic editor are always harmful. And yes Brokpa page needs to add other useful resource from reliable source but I don't know why you never allow a editor like us to edit it , You always referred back , you have a benefit ,just because you have a more number of edit,no body questions you ,so you cherry pick and say according your mind. And yes I have read the reliable citeria of wikepedia and I respect it .

• Delete and redirect to Brokpa - Per nomination; NOPAGE applies. I intend to write a section on this topic, at Brokpa, once the AfD is closed. TrangaBellam (talk) 20:24, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

@TrangaBellam: The Aryan valley region is cited with reliable references like Indian express and also books , please don't delete it ,it is indeed a region

• Keep or TNT if necessary

@Minaro123: On this page you need to put ~~~~ after your comments, to sign them. You really need to read WP:RS, if you wrote this after you starting posting journal articles on the talk page.

@Kautilya3: as admirable an ethnological survey as Brokpa may be, it does not give you ownership of all adjacent matters. Minaro123 has provided multiple instances of the district government using the term in its official capacity. I have found others which are secondary. I am explaining primary sources to him/her, but these links do seem to be evidence of an official renaming. Don't bite the newbie, please, or in this case explain to him/her what he/she is genetically, according to anthropologists. Isn't that a bit ethnocentric, to use the ethnological term of art?

Btw, he/she is not asserting the Alexander theory as truth; merely saying that others have done so. He/she hasn't sourced this statement very well on the page, but those sources do seem to exist, and since he/she seems to need another source for his/her further assertion on the talk page that the Alexander theory is untrue, perhaps that one study you keep posting will work for that.

@TrangaBellam: You seem to have mistakenly swept my examples of by-gosh secondary sources discussing the renaming into the collapsed section above titled "arguments to avoid", which I submit that they are not. Please remedy this. For convenience, I am reposting them here: [3][4] The matter is just not as simple as you seem to think, and Kautilya3 seems to be bringing a genetics argument to bear on an administrative matter.

There are nuances that are not in the Aryan valley article, sure, but this can be remedied, and the administrative aspects of the matter are notable whether or not Kautilya3 thinks they have a sound genetic basis. I do see the tourism campaigns, but my links above would seem to discuss them in a scholarly context, and nobody has demonstrated that this or any sort of "propaganda" is the reason for the name change. And supposing that they were, on Wikipedia we discuss propaganda as propaganda, and advertising as advertising. we don't ignore or dismiss them Elinruby (talk) 00:59, 25 December 2022 (UTC)

• Keep. The topic is likely notable (interesting source, if reliable: [5]). It's possible the article has NPOV issues or such, but I see no need to TNT this, nor am I convinced it fails GNG. The nom's argument, with all due respect, sounds a bit like WP:IDONTLIKEIT (perhaps due to said NPOV issues?). --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 03:22, 25 December 2022 (UTC)

clarification: the TNT suggestion was based on a look at the existing sourcing. The author is new but is responsive. I like that source also but it isn't currently used on the page. Going to work on that personally though. Already did a copy-edit for some English issues -- nothing too unusual for articles about India, just punctuation etc. Elinruby (talk) 04:48, 25 December 2022 (UTC)

Piotrus, Your source has "Aryan Valley" in quotation marks in its title. Why do you think that is? -- Kautilya3 (talk) 10:55, 25 December 2022 (UTC)

Kautilya3,Quotation marks around single words can occasionally be used for emphasis, but only when quoting a word or term someone else used. The authors just want to give a special importance to Aryan valley in that sentence that is a reason he used it, you can use quotation marks for emphasis to separate a certain word from the rest of the sentence. -- — Preceding unsigned comment added by Minaro123 (talk • contribs)

There is only one mention of "Aryan valley" in the article, which says:

Domestic and international visits to Brogpa villages are now packaged as explorations of the “Aryan Valley.”

There is no emphasis of anything. It is a second-hand mention. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 18:41, 25 December 2022 (UTC)

Commeting to kautilya3 (talk • contribs) The national Reasearch organization,ignac quotes:

Our journey in a Aryan valley have started in 2016, a small initiative was taken when we have a community in Dha village for setting up a Aryan valley museum.

The Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts,a centre for research, academic pursuit and dissemination in the field of the arts. They research organisation have cited the above statement in their paper .[6]. --

The Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts,a centre, further quotes:

 :::

The Aryan valley have a distinct culture , however is gradually influenced by neighbouring culture and effect of civilization ..

and also this , Even the

national researchh agency recognise Aryan valley and use the term to denote the region . --

Rendezvous with the Himalayas to set up a Museum in Aryan valley.

And this is the title they are using it .

The national Reasearch organization,ignac quotes:

The stone utensils of Aryan valley and other utilitarian object are also displayed on a decorative shelf called Tsangs in local langauge.

Aryan valley has its unique history , traditions and culture .

Aryan valley is used by offical of India to recognise the Aryan valley region . And newspapers etc in spite of ladakh subregion gets very low media attention due to its remote area and cut off from the rest of world for 6 month in winter because of huge snowfall at its passes . And this is just a beginning , as of now ,there is a more than enough evidence and reference to show aryan valley as a region . But as time goes by ,more and more media attention would get and new wikepedian will cited source and the Aryan valley articles will keep improving . had Minaro123 (talk) 19:21, 25 December 2022 (UTC)

  The national Reasearch organization,ignac quotes:

Some of the areas of Aryan valley are restricted for outsider since it borders POK and Indian forces are stationed there for keeping watch and vegil in this region.

Some border places of Aryan valley region , are restricted for outsider because of security issue, it clarifies that Aryan valley is indeed a region and it is accepted by a research organisation of The Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts.

[7] 20:08, 25 December 2022 (UTC)

• Comment When an article has 37 references, and hardly any of them use the term in the title, the odds on the name being made up approach 100%. If the article can be merged elsewhere, that's probably a good idea. If it cannot, then a descriptive title is probably the way to go. --RegentsPark (comment) 17:08, 28 December 2022 (UTC)

RegentsPark Dear sir/Mam, The older name of the Aryan valley in 19 century is Dha hanu country / Dah hanu District / which included all the major villages of the present day Aryan valley that is Dha,Hanu,Darchik and Garkone , these title was used by a author at that time and It has quoted those history . And the same region was also called as Brogyul during 1950 to 2000, and recently , since nearly 2005 upto present, no one seems to use the Brogyul for these region and naturally the place name was known as Aryan valley by thousand of newspaper,journal ,book, government etc .so we should use Aryan valley . Thank youMinaro123 (talk) 05:15, 29 December 2022 (UTC)

• Futher comment:

:: Economic and political times weekly  2018, it is a reliable source . It quotes :

I was at the Women’s Empowerment Centre (WEC) in Dar-chiks, a village rich in apricots, almonds, pears, apples andgrapes, situated 70-odd kilometres away from Kargil in Jammuand Kashmir, in the area popularly known as Aryan Valley.The village is one of three major settlements of the Brokpa.

The relaible writer acknowledge that that the area is known as Aryan valley which included , darchik as one of its prominent village .

References are :[8] And [9]Minaro123 (talk) 05:06, 29 December 2022 (UTC) Thank you

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 00:09, 31 December 2022 (UTC)

• Keep. The article is about a geographic region, not a people, so the suggestion of a redirect to Brokpa people is nonsensical. It is a region, according to sourced information in the article (which no one seems to be challenging), that was once an independent country. All countries are notable (that is not just common sense, it's blindingly obvious, but if you insist it's per WP:GEOLAND a populated legally recognised place). Once notable, always notable (WP:NTEMP) ergo once a country, always notable. Most of this discussion (and the nomination) centre around the claimed Aryan, or Indo-Aryan heritage of the locals. None of that is currently in the article as far as I can see so that is now a non-issue. That just leaves the name. It may be true that name has been cooked up for tourist reasons, or some nefarious nationalistic plot, but that is all beside the point. There is enough sourced discussion of "Aryan valley" for it to be on Wikipedia. Just the controversy over the use of that name, such as the source found by Elinruby, is in itself notable. At the very worst, that calls for an article name change, not deletion, and even then WP:NPOVNAME allows for the use of a POV name if that is what is being used in sources. SpinningSpark 21:44, 31 December 2022 (UTC)

Spinningspark, Please see this footnote [10] which is the only clear-cut description of this region there is. There is no "legal recocognition" and WP:GEOLAND doesn't apply. If you have been led to believe so, it is due to the WP:POV and WP:OR that infests with this page. The whole reason for this bringing this AfD is to save ourselves the need to keep battling this POV for eternity. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 17:48, 1 January 2023 (UTC)

The whole reason for this bringing this AfD is to save ourselves the need to keep battling this POV for eternity. That is not the purpose of AfD. The subject is notable and meets both WP:GNG and WP:GEOLAND (being legally recognized is one option, not the sole requirement). There is no cause to delete this article; that it might need cleanup is a surmountable problem and is in no way a reason to delete an article. - Aoidh (talk) 18:04, 1 January 2023 (UTC)

From the article: He named the region as Dha Hanu country, which was independent at the time. Is that, or is it not true? If it is, then it is notable because it was a country. There is a reason that WP:NCOUNTRY does not exist. We don't need it because all countries are notable. Your footnote is irrelevant, that is about the people, not the region so does not affect my keep rationale in the slightest. Nor does whether or not they really are Aryan. SpinningSpark 18:43, 1 January 2023 (UTC)

Given your non-neutral language above I suggest you refrain from further comment about what OR "infests" the page, especially since you are again biting its newbie author on the talk because you don't think his source matches what you feel you measured on a map. I suggest a meditation on self-awareness, especially since you just injected your point of view into the lede. I have no particular issue with either of your sources, and have in fact already cited them here, but those points are not yet in the article body, which the lede is supposed to reflect. We all understand that you have strong feelings about this for some reason, but you are not editing in keeping with the values you profess on your talk page. Unclench your jaw from around that newbie. You are being told that your dislike of the article does not translate to a need for Wikipedia to delete it. That said, you don't seem to have actually read the article, either. Of course there is legal recognition. It's the name used by the local councils and territory governments. There are four or five references for this. There can be more if they are needed. I just haven't gotten to writing a section on infrastructure yet. So drop the stick and quit telling Minaro123 that all his sources have to contain the term "Aryan Valley", including those that deal with the previous century. Elinruby (talk) 21:28, 1 January 2023 (UTC)

• Comment I am a complete outsider to this topic, but have been researching this and working with the article author, Minaro123. I believe the following is a correct summary.

Aryan Valley is in fact a made-up name, not organic, but it was made up by the government ten years ago, which uses it officially to designate a very specific area not just for purposes of tourism but also when describing electrification initiatives, agricultural extension programs and other administrative matters.

The people of the area describe themselves as Minaro. The name Brokpa was given to them by a different ethnic group that is more akin to the Tibetans, and "Brogpa" means "hill-dwellers". Along the Line of Control it applies to a number of unrelated communities that are respectively Buddhist, animist, and several types of Shia. There is another, different, group known as Brokpa in the next state over who herd yaks. The Minaro, a subset of those described as Brokpa in Ladakh, grow fruit and barley and are animists and nominally also Buddhist. This is a cultural designation, not a racial one, as Minaro123 (talk · contribs) feels that the Brogpa across the line of control are not Minaro, because they no longer practice the traditional ways. The Minaro who live in Aryan Valley do not consider themselves Aryan, by the way, although their oral history says that they have distant roots in Europe by way of Gitgit. They do not have a written history. The "Aryan" idea stems, as far as I can tell, from 19th century British amateur ethnologues. The Minaro seem to agree that they are Dards, but neither the Aryans nor the Dards used these names to describe themselves. I have not yet discovered the reasoning behind the Ladakh government choosing this particular name for the region, but it may (my speculation) have been an attempt to differentiate it from nearby areas of Kashmir being marketed as tourist destinations by the Pakistani government. It should be noted that the Brogpa are a minority culture in Ladakh. There is a controversy that can be explored about the name, and should, but the name does in fact designate a specific region within Ladakh, whose components Mindaro has enumerated at my request on the talk page. There is also a section on the talk page where I try to enunciate the distinctions between the various overlapping ethnic group names.

I thought we had established the government use of the name, and had moved on to looking for secondary sources that described the region. However, Minaro123 has provided several links to local English-language news, and work on the article can focus on this aspect of the name for a while, if this is still a concern. Hope that helps. Elinruby (talk) 15:08, 1 January 2023 (UTC)

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