Re: A question and introduction

Well, you can either just borrow the name, transliterating it into your
language's writing system and pronouncing it as close as possible.  Or,
you can find out what the name means, and build a native name in your
language with the same meaning.  Or, if your language is an a-posteriori
language based off of a natural language (for instance, a hypothetical
romance language), you can put the name as it was in the source language
through the same sound and grammar shifts that affected the rest of the
language.

For instance, if you wanted to borrow "Steg" into my main conlang,
Rokbeigalmki, it'd be pretty easy - the language has all the necessary
sounds, so "Steg" would just be "Stég" (with an accent on the E).  Or,
you could 'translate' it.  Since "Steg" is short for "Stephen", and
"Stephen" comes from a Greek root meaning something like "crown", and
"crown" in Rokbeigalmki is (if i remember correctly, i don't have time to
look it up now) "rigraash", "Stephen" could be 'translated' as something
like "Ríhghraas" (the Rokbeigalm don't like names with completely
transparent meanings, so it's a little different than the actual word for
'crown').  A shortened version of "Ríhghraas" could be "Ríhg", which
would then be the 'translation' of "Steg".  Or, since "Steg" is a false
cognate with the Greek root for "cover" (as in Stegosaurus), you could
use the Rokbeigalmki root "welot", which means "cover", and come up with
a translation like "Wlót" or "Wélt" or something like that.


-Stephen (Ríhg)
 "white shirts have no personality."  ~ AW


On Mon, 10 Jun 2002 22:53:55 EDT Mischa! Rosado <Firenymph08@...>
writes:
Hey everyone.  I'm new to this, in a way, I've been reading your emails
for a while but haven't said anything yet.  My name is Mischa, and I'm
creating a language.  But now I need some help! =)  How would one go
about translating names into their language?  I can figure pretty much
everything else out for myself, but this is giving me grief.  Thanks

Mischa!