Re: Concartography (was: Unsolicited abuse)

On Thu, 13 May 1999 15:46:54 -0600 Adam Parrish <myth@...> writes:
>        This is my experience exactly.  One of the first things I did
>after reading _The Hobbit_ was to draw elaborate maps of far-off
>imaginary
>continents.  Most of my early conlang efforts were actually just
>attempts
>to make up meanings for the nonsense place names I wrote on the maps.
>It
>seems as if conlanging and concartography go hand in hand.
>
>Adam
>--
>myth@inquo.net
>http://www.inquo.net/~myth
>
I just realized that my brother did that also, with some of the countries
and other places on his World...
It also got him (and me) into conhistory.

For instance, there's a roughly square-shaped block of land in the
Northern Continent, near it's south-west corner, called the "Si-h.i^l
Square" (- macron ; . underdot ; ^ breve).
It's split into four parts, corresponding roughly to the compass
directions:
Saiyasihil (north)
Drishtasihil (east)
Nimyajaiasihil (south)
Fi^nda@youri^sihil (west)
(the {a@} is an {a} with a shwa on top of it)

So, the explanation was that each name-part before the -sihil was that
country's direction, north east south and west.

Another example:
There's a country called Kexomlure right next to the Sihil Square.  It
has a river named Kexomluren running through it, because the _-n_ at the
end of the name means "the river of".  Colonists from Kexomlure colonized
parts of the Southern Continent and founded the countries of East
Lexomfyour and West Lexomfyour, and Zexomjour.  However, part of
Zexomjour revolted against the despotic government and founded the nation
of Zexomjouren.  Why the _-en_ if it's a country, not a river?  Because
it's below sea level, and they use seawalls to keep back the water.

Also, there's a mountainous inland country called Kaylautia, named after
the explorer Kaylauk.  That's not really conlanging, more conhistorying,
but i took the name Kaylauk and made it _keilauk_ [kejlOk], "exploration"
in Rokbeigalmki :) .


-Stephen (Steg)

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