Re: CHAT: Ability of Americans & Europeans to locate each others cities

On Wed, 18 Sep 2002 09:17, Roberto Suarez Soto wrote:
> On Sep/17/2002, Clint Jackson Baker wrote:
> > When all else fails, say "Springfield"! (Most common
>
>         Speaking about city names: what are the
> names/strategy/structure/algorithm (if any) people use here for toponyms
> in their concultures/conworlds/conlangs? (yes/I/like/slashes/:-D)
>
>         I think the deep motivation of the question is more to see
> strange or humorous names people gave to this places in their conlangs,
> more than anything else ;-) I've used a few different strategies in
> Unahoban (specially since the names were formed before the language had
> any meaning O:-)):
>
>         - Names of people from old tales ("Lhoena", after a maiden's
>           name)
>         - Expressions of people about the country ("Ish'ein", "Plain
>           land")
>         - Good ol' compound names ("Imiroshtu", "Cloudy Sky";
>           "Aumunlunnin", "Roots of Stone")
>         - Some souvenir from the place in question ("Gish", "Sand"; the
> land is almost totally covered by a desert)
>
>         And then I have a lot more that I haven't yet "reverse
> engineered" or modified to have any meaning at all O:-)
>
>         This really is a field where just copying real life would give a
> lot of good examples. Many of the names of towns have that kind of
> "compound names" that can be easily translated into a conlang and become
> a nice name for a fantastic place :-) Indeed, there are a few here in
> Galicia that would make for some nifty (and/or funny) names:
> "Compostela" (from "Campus Stellae", "Field of Stars"),
And there I was, blithely believing it came from |cum| |pono| with a
diminutive ending, thus meaning - in this Kiwi's twisted mind - "Site of
Little/Not Much Compost" ;^)  I am gravely disappointed! :)

Valdoviño
> ("Valley of the Wine"),
I can believe in that.  One of my story's concultured locations is called
"The North Vineyards", "The Vineyards in/of the North", and covers about the
distance from Christchurch to Kaikoura (- now there's a couple of names -
Christ Church, a Church-established College in Oxford University, now the
name of a city in NZ; Kaikoura - Kai is food, Koura is crayfish/lobster in Te
Reo Maori, the Maori language.)  No wonder when Vheratsho, self-titled
"Unquiet Spirit" attempts to take it over - it is a semi-sacred site, where
Lakhabrech from different tribes and clans can put aside their differences -
she effectively gives up at least sixty percent of it, because she doesn't
trust her ragtag bunch of slaves and they can't manage much more than half a
day's journey either way.

Wesley Parish

"Lobeira" ("Wolf's burrow", or maybe "Wolf's
> hole"), "Ardemil" ("A thousand burn"; I think it refers to a legend of a
> muslim army that was burnt there) ... I'm sure every language has their
> anecdotic names to tell :-)
--
Mau e ki, "He aha te mea nui?"
You ask, "What is the most important thing?"
Maku e ki, "He tangata, he tangata, he tangata."
I reply, "It is people, it is people, it is people."