Re: CHAT: Place names (was: Pascua)

On Wed, 3 May 2000, FFlores wrote:

> Yes, it sometimes sounds unimaginative, but it's how places are named
> (unless the founders are poets or conlangers, I guess).
I worked on a shared conworld with a friend before I discovered Valdyas
- in fact the shards of this world after it foundered (the friendship
broke up by an unfortunate misunderstanding) were part of what
Valdyas is made of. It was set on an unspecified planet, settled by
Orthodox people from mixed Slavic/European and Rumanian traditions.
Some of the place names I remember:

Jazvina    "Chasm" - in the mountains, built across and on both sides
            of a narrow and deep crevice. It was nicknamed, by its
            inhabitants, Jama "The Abyss".

Bezpesnoje "Dogless" - my favourite!

(and another one that's on the tip of my tongue, that I will remember
the moment I hit ^X)

and in the Rumanian hemisphere:

Valea Verde "Green Valley"

S^inziene "Saint John's Day" - I got this from the name of a folk
dance, in fact, that translates as "Dance of the girls on the feast
of St.John", but it's so much like several names of dances that go
"Dance from <place>" that I actually thought that S^inziene was a
place name for a while.

If I'd kept it up I could have made everybody speak Vranian - they
were speaking what I called "New Slavonic" when it fell apart.


In Valdyas, some places have descriptive names:

Turenay "Bath-place" (it's a watering place, with hot mineral springs
and several associated bath-houses)

Tal-Serth "Glass Village" (glassblowers; not *made* of glass)

Tal-Ryth "Chief Village" - every region has one, for instance there's
Rizene Tal-Ryth "Tal-Ryth near Rizenay" and Sarbale Tal-Ryth
"Tal-Ryth near Sarabal".

Rizenay itself is called after the Rizean family; it may be clear
that -ay is a place-name suffix.

Ildie Nesile "Halfway-on-Ilda" because it's exactly halfway between
Ildis and Glan

Idanyas "Waterland" - a region (that thinks itself semi-autonomous)
on the south coast. Parts of it are in a delta warm and humid enough
to grow rice.

I could go through the list and come up with some more, but you get
the idea :-)

   Irina

--
           Varsinen an laynynay, saraz no arlet rastynay.
irina@valdyas.org (myself) - http://valdyas.conlang.org (Valdyas)
          http://www.valdyas.org/irina/index.html (home)