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Re: Characters (was: Nice comment, Adam! (was: beautiful scripts))

From:Irina Rempt-Drijfhout <irina@...>
Date:Wednesday, October 17, 2001, 21:28
On Wednesday 17 October 2001 19:57, Andreas  Johansson wrote:
> Herman Miller wrote:
> >I often sidestep the issue of representing my name by adopting a > > name in the other language (Yietazai in Chispa, Talanor in > > Galtani Elvish, Khilnik in Tirelhat).
I don't do that on principle, because I used to be a member of a conculture society that started with all the members masquerading as "ambassadors" of their cultures, and I didn't want any of that. I do use the names of roleplaying characters, though; Pariyal (which is the Denden translation of my first and middle names, "peace friend") and Raisse (also my alias on the NetHack newsgroup), but those are not representations of the Real Me, they're aliases with their own personality.
> >"Herman" rarely sounds good > > in any language.
It's unusual but possible in Valdyan: two-syllable male names ending in -an are very common (Radan, Faran, Lydan, Reshan). It would be ['hERman], or in some dialects ['eRman] (R is uvular, I can't do small caps; apico-alveolar [r] is a permitted variant; [a] alternates freely with [A]).
> > "John" happens to work well in Tirelhat (Xhan or > > Xhon, depending on dialect), but it'd be tricky in Chispa (Ch'at? > > Ch'aru?).
That would become Zhon [ZOn] and be recognized as a foreign name immediately, or possibly Jon [jOn], or even [jo:n] and taken to be a nickname or abbreviation.
> Herman'd be turned into {Herman}, pronounced [Ernan], note the > [-n-].
I like that! How does the [-n-] come into being?
> Andreas {Andréas} works well phonetically, but looks like the > accusative of a feminine name. Johansson is a nightmare - > {Juhanson} [u'ansOn]?
In Valdyan, Andreas would be the accusative of 'Andras' or 'Andres', which looks like a place name. I can't do Johansson right now, have to think some more about that. Irina -- irina@valdyas.org http://www.valdyas.org/irina --------------------------------------------------------------------- By my troth, we that have good wits have much to answer for. We shall be flouting; we cannot hold. - William Shakespeare, _As You Like It_

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Patrick Dunn <tb0pwd1@...>