Re: Language Naming

Adam Parrish wrote:

> On Thu, 21 Jan 1999, Sheets, Jeff wrote:
> > So the general convention for natlangs is naming it after the original
> > country/nation?  Are there any major exceptions to this?
> > Are there any other ways that the native speakers of a language name it?
>         Though I don't speak with any scientific authority whatsoever, I
> don't think there would be much limitation on how natives name their
> language.  The perfect example is for me the most obvious: I live in the
> United States, but for some reason I call my language English.
>         FWIW, and from a more conlang-related point of view, my conlang
> Doraya wasn't originally named that way (intrafictionally, at least).
>         (Actually, that's just the current story I use to justify the
> continued use of the word _doraya_ to identify the language -- a
> word which, though it seemed nice when I first started working on the
> language, is horribly incorrect under the current grammar. <g>)
I've done something similar. Originally, Ge'arthnuns didn't mean
anything in and of itself. But after a similar thread a while ago on the
list, I back-derived it so that "nuns" is an archaic word for "language"
or "speech", leaving "ge'arth" to represent some ethnic or geographic
classification. Well, having the mythic location where this is spoken
called "Ge'arthland" or "Isle of Ge'arth" or its people called the
"Ge'arths" just wasn't making me happy. As it happens, last week I
decided to back-derive "ge'arths" as well, a noun which indicates the
mutual loyalty and support joining the monarch and his/her subjects --
noblesse oblige on the part of the monarch and fealty on the part of the
subjects. Ge'arthnuns, then, could be translated loosely as the "Loyal
Speech" and represents the covenant between monarch and subjects as they
use it to communicate with one another. This leaves it open for me to
find another name for the land and its people, at which point there may
evolve a lesser used term, based on that name, for the language -- kinda
like "zhongwen" and "hanyu" for Chinese.

Kou