Re: How you pronunce foreign place names

How the Urianians pronounced foreign names has varied in time. Some
mythical names came with them when they arrived to the island, some
of those being actual places, like the rivers Nilos, Zasnuwios and
Rinos, and the lake Genowa. Those names survive in old religious
songs, but altered beyond recognition (Nul, Zenny, Run, Kinu) and
never borrowed names for the same entities have replaced them. Later
they learnt foreign names from visiting sailors, not being bigtime
navigators themselves. Visits from Veneti and Picts were regular. (I
am construing pre-Celtic Pictish as a sister language of Urianian.)
More infrequent visits from Phoenicians and Carthaginians and even a
stray Greek or two were bigger occasions, bringing more exotic news
from abroad. Later, Romans became commonplace, they even established
a trade colony for a while. Many of the names from this phase
survive, but I need to do some work in constructing them. Even later,
the Urianians lost their independence and came under Danish
influence. A lot of later foreign names are borrowed through Danish.
For example, Paris is written and pronounced with a final s. Some
names that fit badly into the Urianian rhythm were altered slightly.
For example Bucuresti -> Dan. Bukarest -> U. Bukrest. Lately it has
become fashionable to spell foreign names the way the foreigners do
it and even attempt the foreign pronunciation. Burkina Faso and
Ouagadougou are called just that, for example. Likewise Beijing, Sri
Lanka, Mumbai and others that have specifically been redefined
lately. But of the inherited names a lot are still in common use.

Gaajans never got to see an iron age, but they also were visited by
sailors and sailed a bit themselves, so they weren't unacquainted
with foreign place names. To tell exactly what names they knew, what
languages they were from and what languages they were carried through
is a future big research project however. Probably a lot of these
names aren't known today. Some of them might have been from Jörg's
Old Albic, possibly.

Just thought you'd like to know.

LEF