Re: Naming Mythical creatures

B. Garcia <madyaas@...> wrote:
> I'm a little curious on how those of you who've gotten far enough for
> your cultures' mythologies on naming various deities, spirit types,
> monsters, and mythical creatures?
>
> I've been trying to figure out how to go about it for the Saalangal,
> and I've looked to Tagalog for inspiration, but not much luck. I
> assume originally creature names would usually have some sort of
> meaning behind them (such as the recent example here - werewolf), So,
> how did you all go about giving names to the various creatures in your
> concultures' mythologies?
Well, in Henaudute I got into a little bit of it when I was making
up the calendar.

First off I yoinked some rough equivalents to Greek/IE gods:
    Rhar      "Helios"  < are  "sun"
    Brer      "Selene"  < mere "moon"
    Grar      "Gaea"    < garê "earth"
    Lallidrê  "Zeus"    < lalê "day" + "dê" father
    Mêidrê    "Nyx"     < mêthê "night" + "dê" father
(yeah, some genders differ...)

Then some basic elemental creatures:
    gartoe  "gnome"  < garê "earth" + *toich- "spirit"
    hêtoe   "sylph"  < hê "wind"
    tantoe  "salamander" < tan "fire"
    lûtoe   "undine"   < lûe "water"

And a few animals, either mythical or greatly exaggerated to the
point where they may as well be. These are usually borrowed manglings
of words from *here.*
    harglê   "exotic kind of wolf"
               (same source as Eng. "jackal")
    pandîgin "spotted wildcat"
               (literally "pan" beast, like Grk. pan-ther)
    sis      "lion, an enormous beast with a mane" (Ja. "shishi")
    lou      "tiger"
               (zh "lao3hu3")
    talla    "phoenix, bird with feathers of fire"
               (tan "fire" + *laka "bird of prey")


	*Muke!
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