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

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
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