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I hate tags on articles, so request a reference here: the bold statement that this hymn is part of Catholic hymnals needs a ref, or two. - In the 1930s, hymns by Luther were included in a Catholic hymnal trying to be ecumenical, Kirchenlied, but not under his name, and not this one. It the 1975 Gotteslob, hymns by Luther were included under his name, but not this one. In the second (2013) edition, same. But perhaps there are others. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:53, 6 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

So we have a ref that this id true for a place in Canada, true for "A Mighty Fortress". Can we be specific and say that the German hymn was so far excluded from German official Catholic hymnals? At present, it reads as if the hymn in general was accepted for Catholic services, which would surprise me if true. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:02, 27 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I have now reworded the paragraph, since the only two citations we use are from North America. Softlavender (talk) 08:17, 27 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

That's better but I think the first sentence of that para, speaking of popularity beyond Protestantism - at least it can be read that way, superficially reading - is misleading. Could it be reworded? Or perhaps dropped altogether? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:41, 27 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

That sentence wasn't great, but some preface needs to be there to indicate it's not, or no longer, exclusive to Protestant services/hymnbooks. I've re-worded it slightly. Softlavender (talk) 08:51, 27 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. Now how about placing that paragraph below translation, because the rest of "reception" - better section header perhaps? - is of the German, without saying so. I believe it would be more logical to first have it translated, then included to a Canadian hymnal, unless the Canadian has it in German. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:55, 27 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

No, the main/first part of the Reception section is about the overall worldwide popularity of the hymn, so that's where that text belongs; it's all the same hymn in its various translations. The English Translations sub-section is for detailing the various specific translations and the differences between them. Softlavender (talk) 09:53, 27 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The concept "all the same hymn" is nothing I will ever understand, but see you next year, - now in preparation for Christmas. Thank you for your effort, - I came to think that I better don't touch the article. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:08, 27 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

After a thorough look at the HGA score for the mentioned number (the double-chorus "Praise the lord") and a quick listen: Haendel cites the beginning of the last phrase (I,e. "auf Erd ist nichts sein gleichen"); however that's just an interrupted descending scale which then it goes back up so it's probably, at least in my opinion, more of a mere coincidence (and, as per below, it does indeed match another chorale melody)

However, and more importantly, the quoted source for this being a "wrong attribution" does not appear to be, prima facie, a scholarly journal ("Credenda Agenda"; which seems more like some form of religiously-themed magazine whose primary topic is definitively not hymnology or even music in general) and it is used to contradict the opinion of a known expert in the field (i.e. Gardiner). The melody (on the words "God alone is just and wise", p. 287 per the HGA numbering on the score available at IMSLP) does indeed appear to be the one cited ("Jesaja dem Propheten das geschah", see here, the phrase indicated "dreimal" (three times; it's between repeat bars)); though this is one of the lesser known hymns by Luther (there's a prelude on it by Zachow and a setting by Melchior Vulpius; however it does not appear even once in the works, vocal or instrumental, of Bach; and it does not have a page either here or on German wiki).

If there was a page on the mentioned hymn, I'd probably move this there and hope somebody can find a better (if possible?) source. However, in the current situation, and given that I don't have access to Gardiner's notes to check what he does say on the topic, I'll leave it be. The mentioned recording seems to be this one. 107.190.33.254 (talk) 01:53, 26 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

This seems rather non-controversial so I'd rather not have to open a formal RM for this. WP:SENTENCECASE is rather clear that the title should be in sentence case, which in this case would be "A mighty fortress is our God" (see this sample of appearances in hymnals, which confirms that this would be also the WP:COMMONNAME). The sentence case version already exists as a redirect so I'm asking if anybody would object to me posting a request at WP:RM#TR. Cheers, RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 03:15, 24 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

A Mighty Fortress Is Our God → A mighty fortress is our God – WP:SENTENCECASE. Already exists as a redirect. See Talk:A_Mighty_Fortress_Is_Our_God#Suggested move - no objection raised there. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 23:43, 27 May 2020 (UTC) Please see my post with an expanded rationale below. Thanks, RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 14:14, 28 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

This is a contested technical request (permalink). Anthony Appleyard (talk) 04:58, 28 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• @RandomCanadian, Randy Kryn, and 17jiangz1:

• This one seems controversial enough for a discussion, it is a very prominent hymn written by Martin Luther, and, to quote from the page, is "one of the best loved hymns of the Lutheran tradition and among Protestants more generally. It has been called the 'Battle Hymn of the Reformation' for the effect it had in increasing the support for the Reformers' cause..." Is it historically a lower-cased song/gospel song title, or is there another reason for wanting to change it? Thanks. Randy Kryn (talk) 00:04, 28 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I am well aware of the status of the hymn, this is simply per the usual recommendations of WP:SENTENCECASE/WP:NCCAPS. This is how the first line appears as "running text" in most hymnals. Nobody objected to the request I posted on the article talk page. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 02:36, 28 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Not all pages are on everyone's watch list, so thank you for bringing it here and not just changing it. This one seems controversial enough to discuss as a regular RM. Randy Kryn (talk) 03:20, 28 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Well I don't see what's controversial about NCCAPS but ok I'll expand my rationale and make this into a proper RM tomorrow morning. Cheers, RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 03:49, 28 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment: In this case I think the line should be treated the title of the work (which is how its being used in this context), thus title case will apply and only the is should be uncapitalised as A Mighty Fortress is Our God. --17jiangz1 (talk) 04:46, 28 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• Actually, per Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Titles#Capital_letters: "Always capitalized: When using title case, the following words should be capitalized:...Every verb, including forms of to be (Be, Am, Is, Are, Being, Was, Were, Been)". Rreagan007 (talk) 07:17, 28 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment: I don't care, believing that the title of this page should be Luther's German title. All other of his hymns are in German, compare Nun bitten wir den Heiligen Geist. See archived discussion, sigh. Once the title is in English, it really doesn't matter much if sentence case or (foreign to German) title case. How about A Mighty Fortress, for a compromise, if still English? A title, not the first line which is usual for hymns. I'd appreciate if the first line in the article could be changed to something not suggesting that Luther wrote English text. Off to writing Komm, Schöpfer Geist, kehr bei uns ein, and thankful for lilypond once there, RC ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 06:56, 28 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose This is a song title, so per Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style#Titles_of_works, "The English-language titles of compositions (books and other print works, songs and other audio works, films and other visual media works, paintings and other artworks, etc.) are given in title case, in which every word is given an initial capital except for certain less important words". I also oppose using the German title per WP:USEENGLISH, as the English title is the most common name of this song in English. Rreagan007 (talk) 07:13, 28 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• (edit conflict) Keep current capitalisation ("A Mighty Fortress Is Our God") – this seems to be the way the title is written in hymnals ([1]). This would be my first preference.

My second preference would be to move the article to "Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott" – most of Luther's hymns appear under their original German name in English Wikipedia, and then there's no discussion about capitalisation. Oppose moving to the German name, which was extensively discussed before

Strongly oppose "A Mighty Fortress is Our God" as in 17jiangz1's suggestion: MOS:CAPTITLE is quite clear: "... When using title case, the following words should be capitalized: (...) Every verb, including forms of to be (Be, Am, Is, Are, Being, Was, Were, Been)."

I also strongly oppose the OP proposition (sentence case, "A mighty fortress is our God"). For clarity:

• The WP:SENTENCECASE guidance has no guidance on whether sentence case should or should not apply in this case (saying otherwise is incorrect);
• Neither does the MOS:CAPTITLE guidance indicate that this would be something where title case doesn't apply.
• Neither does Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Capital letters indicate that this article title would need to be sentence case.

I've looked in other guidance (e.g. Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Music, ...) and could not find any reason why this shouldn't be title case. --Francis Schonken (talk) 07:19, 28 May 2020 (UTC); updated 10:29, 28 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Francis, you say "most of Luther's hymns" have German titles in the English Wikipedia, - is there any other in English than this one? (Also, please read Wikipedia:Colons and asterisks.) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:29, 28 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Re. "is there any other in English than this one?" – a few currently redirect to articles that have a non-German hymn title as article title – and plenty more don't exist as article on a single hymn, e.g. "Ein neues Lied wir heben an" redirects to a section in the Jan van Essen and Hendrik Vos article – which is definitely an English-language article title, and also the section to which the German hymn title redirects has an English-language section title. But this has little relevance for the current RM: "most of Luther's hymns appear under their original German name in English Wikipedia" is correct, and a valid argument as used by me above, so I'd rather not be side-tracked with minute discussions about what is the case for the others, while quite irrelevant in the current discussion. --Francis Schonken (talk) 08:38, 28 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for details, and sorry for a question not precisely worded. Summary: of Luther's hymns which have their own article on the English Wikipedia, this is the only one with an English article title. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:57, 28 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Struck my second choice, per previous discussions. Seems like a can of worms I definitely don't want to open. As far as I can remember previous discussions were very extensive: the English-language title is the best option here, per WP:CRITERIA, and whether that's the only one in comparison to some others is quite irrelevant. The "Old 100th" article is the redirect target for a few hymn titles, including as well German as English ones. I don't see how it would matter that the article title is rather unique among article titles on hymns. English-language titles for English Wikipedia articles about hymns that were translated from another language aren't even that exceptional, e.g. "O Sacred Head, Now Wounded". --Francis Schonken (talk) 10:29, 28 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I thought we talk here about Luther's hymns, where it's one out of c. 30. In the Category:German Christian hymns, I count 8 with English titles (of 170). The cat's name looks like a contradiction to me, and should - next new task - possibly be moved to "German-language hymns", because language is it, not region, - some are Swiss or Austrian. I'd talk about this on your talk, Francis, but you delete things there, referring to article talk, - only, in this case, it's more than one article involved. For the hymn in question here, we could have one article covering Luther's hymn and things derived from the German version, and another one covering the substantial use of the English version(s) (as proposed before and rejected). For most others of only 8 - we could just move to the original title. Two of them I saw today for the first time. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:21, 29 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• Support as nom. The MOS is about work titles in running texts (for example, MOS:CAPTITLE seems to refer to cases in running text of works such as "Works of Martin Luther With Introductions and Notes"; while MOS:CAPS is very clearly about written text, given the nature of the examples there).
  What matters here for the article title is the title policies which I have named above, that is WP:NCCAPS, which says very clearly:

Do not capitalize the second or subsequent words in an article title, unless the title is a proper name. For multiword page titles, one should leave the second and subsequent words in lowercase unless the title phrase is a proper name that would always occur capitalized, even mid-sentence.

"A mighty fortress is our God" is not "a proper name" (compare with "Martin Luther" or "Johann Sebastian Bach"), and in usual running text, it would not occur capitalised, see for example the sampling of hymnals I linked in the previous discussion here which all have the first sentence as "A mighty fortress is our God". WP:SENTENCECASE (which, unlike what is suggested above, is the policy that applies, as written there, for "Article title format") also says the same thing:

Titles are written in sentence case. The initial letter of a title is almost always capitalized by default; otherwise, words are not capitalized unless they would be so in running text.

MOS:INCIPIT also states "If a work is known by its first line or few words of text (its incipit), this is rendered in sentence case". This is clearly the case here. This also appears to be the convention used in academic-level reliable sources, for eg. the Canterbury Dict. of Hymnology has "A mighty fortress our God"; and the 1907 edition used as a reference here also has "A mighty fortress is our God" (with added disambiguation due to other translations, but nevertheless).

Hopefully this makes my case clear. Thanks, RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 14:14, 28 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Re. "Hopefully this makes my case clear" – no, your comment is rather (in fact: entirely) clueless. Seems you completely missed NCCAPS's "... unless the title phrase is a proper name that would always occur capitalized, even mid-sentence" (emphasis added) – which is the case for "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God", which is the proper name of a Christian hymn (at least: that's what the content of this article is about). --Francis Schonken (talk) 14:39, 28 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

My point is that this is not "a proper name" but an incipit. Calling me "entirely clueless" comes off as not very WP:CIVIL... RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 14:48, 28 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Your comment was clueless, sorry about that.

Let me give you an example:

• "Bess, you is my woman now" is a phrase with a grammatical error – there's no Wikipedia article about that phrase.
• "Bess, you is my woman now" is also the incipit of "Bess, You Is My Woman Now", about which Wikipedia has an article.
• "Bess, You Is My Woman Now" is the proper name of a duet composed by Gershwin. "Bess, you is my woman now" is not the proper name of that duet.

Hope that clarifies.

MOS:INCIPIT only works if there's no proper name (which should of course be preferred over the incipit if there is one). --Francis Schonken (talk) 14:59, 28 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Here's an example of an incipit that is not a proper name: "The righteous perishes" (thus, sentence case). --Francis Schonken (talk) 15:07, 28 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Strange is the inconsistency that for foreign language hymns we follow sentence case as usual, eg. Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern or Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott; but for English translations we immediately adopt modern song capitalisation conventions and cap everything.

I have yet to see an academic publication (like those given above) which refers to this as "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God". Maybe "A Mighty Fortress", but certainly not the whole title. This, while using an alternative translation, refers to it as 'A strong tower is our God', in sentence case. Another source which I already mentioned, Julian's Dict. of Hymnology is consistent and uses "A mighty fortress is our God" in multiple entries.

As I said, I fail to see how 20th-century conventions, for Gershwin or for other genres of music, are relevant to a hymn. Titling policies are clear that the usual "capitalise almost everything" is not what we use even if that is how it's "popular". The example given at MOS:INCIPIT is quite enlightening on the matter:

"An act to enforce the 15th amendment to the Constitution of the United States", the beginning of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and sometimes used as a long name for it; legal incipits are often originally published in all-capitals. [but we ignore this and report this alternative title in sentence case. Same thing should apply for hymns which are known primarily by their incipits which is used as a title.]

Cheers, RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 15:34, 28 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Compare,

• "Bess, You Is My Woman Now" is a duet premièred in 1935
• "Good Christians All, Rejoice and Sing" is a Christian hymn first published in 1931
• "O Death Rock Me Asleep" is an early 17th-century poem
• "When the Nightingale Sings" is a Middle English poem

All of these are titles based on the incipit, all of them are in title case, and all of them follow Wikipedia's capitalisation rules. If you want to fight Wikipedia's capitalisation rules, this is not the place. Pick the talk page of any of the handful of guidance pages that exist about it and try to find consensus for the change. But your largely irrelevant comments about "modern song capitalisation conventions" (while these are old poetry and lyrics conventions), etc, etc, will likely fail to make any impression there. --Francis Schonken (talk) 16:32, 28 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

WP:OSE just means all of these could also be wrong. Anyway, I gave 3 academic sources which refer to this hymn not by it's "proper name" in supposedly title case but by it's incipit in proper sentence case, and a boatload of hymnals which confirm that this is the proper sentence case spelling of the incipit. Despite that, we're obviously not convincing each other, so I suggest we just drop it and let others weigh in on the matter. Cheers, RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 18:05, 28 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The problem is wasting your fellow editor's time. --Francis Schonken (talk) 18:34, 28 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose, per this ngram and WP:Naming_conventions_(capitalization)#Titles_of_works. Allan Rice (talk) 07:42, 29 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose per WP:CAPTITLE, WP:COMMONNAME, and above discussion. As the common and recognized proper name of the song it should remain upper-cased, in English, on English Wikipedia. Randy Kryn (talk) 13:36, 29 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Support per MOS:INCIPIT. MOS:CAPTITLE and the MOS:TITLES approach to song titles are being mis-cited; this is not a song title, it's an incipit (in translation, at that). Like any well-known incipit, it is used as a stand-in for a title, but is not a formal title. It receives a different style, and WP didn't invent that; you'll find the same rule in Chicago Manual of Style and many other style guides. WP:COMMONNAME has nothing to do with capitalization; it is the policy that tells us whether our title should be "Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott" (with capitalization following only the German-language rule to capitalize nouns) or "A mighty fortress is our God" (in one stylization or another); MoS and derived naming conventions guidelines are what determine capitalization and other style questions. MoS standards are stricter than COMMONNAME; if a string is not consistently capitalized in almost all reliable sources on that particular topic, then it it is not capitalize in Wikipedia (first rule of MOS:CAPS). As for the German vs. English question: WP:USEENGLISH. We should not use the German version unless it clearly dominates in English-language reliable sources. As for the WP:CONSISTENT question: we may simply need to move more of these to English-language names, but it depends on how each one is most often treated in English-language RS; the WP:RECOGNIZABLE criterion (i.e. the actual basis of COMMONNAME) is a higher-order criterion than CONSISTENT, and is in fact the highest-priority of the WP:CRITERIA.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:13, 4 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Well, if "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God" is not the English title of this song, then what is? Rreagan007 (talk) 20:20, 4 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

It's not a title, it's an incipit. The only "title" for this hymn that is not an incipit is that originally given (by Luther?), "Der xxxxvi. Psalm. Deus noster refugium et virtus." (which is not the common name, anyways). See also the sources I gave above (John Julian, Dict. Hymnology ; and J.R.Watson; and others) which unambiguously refer to it this using a non-capitalised version such as "A mighty fortress is our God". Thanks, RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 20:46, 4 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The n-grams show that the present upper-cased form is both the common name and the most recognized name in English. This is English Wikipedia, not German Wikipedia. Per common sense, no need to wikilawyer the accepted English title of arguably the most popular and influential hymn in Lutheran and Protestant history. Randy Kryn (talk) 21:12, 4 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• Support per MOS:INCIPIT, as explained above by SMcCandlish. It's a mistake to confuse the title of a published work, such as the title printed on the cover and title page of a book, with an informal name, such as using the incipit to refer to a hymn or poem that does not have a separate title. (As an aside, there's considerable inconsistency at present. Articles like I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud capitalize in the article title and the opening sentence, but then typically don't do consistently so throughout. Such articles also typically waver between italicizing and not italicizing; a 'real' title of a published work should be italicized. It does seem to be an area where there needs to be clarification of the guidelines.) Peter coxhead (talk) 09:22, 5 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Or at least consistent application of them; I'm not sure there's anything in them that's not clearly worded or is missing. I think mostly a) many of these are obscure topics with few editors, some of whom don't care about style or don't read MoS and follow a style they're used to (e.g. from religious or music-focused publishers or whatever); and b) many articles on topics like this are old, and pre-date the solidification of various style rules, and have simply not been updated in the interim. This sort of thing is common (e.g., there was, and probably still is, rampant over-capitalization in transport/transit topics for both of the same reasons).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  09:43, 5 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Just notified the wikiprojects so maybe a relisting may generate more opinions. Just want to mention once more that the n-grams uphold the present title, which is the hymn's most widely known and recognizable name in English. Randy Kryn (talk) 03:35, 8 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Note that n-grams could also include hymnals and other kinds of primary sources (multiply that by the hymn's capitalised incipit appearing in indices/table of contents...) As was a welcome surprise when I expanded There Is a Green Hill Far Away only to realise that nearly every source gave the title as There is a green hill far away... As I said, this could be the same issue here... RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 04:49, 8 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose - I note MOS:INCIPIT; but, in the case of hymns, the title is almost always the same as the first line, but I believe is a title. Hymnary.org provides dozens of scans from hymn books over 150 years, and the great majority of them display this as a title - it is displayed alone, in title case, above the work, not merely emphasised as an incipit where it appears in the words of the hymn. I think starting to sentence-case the names of hymns would be at odds with the sources and our policy. TSP (talk) 14:12, 8 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]