Taur Cordof WIP

[Coyotemax]

Wow.. far too much hassle. Gobbledigook rules the day as far as I'm concerned.

I may have to resort to that.

For example: I'm trying to translate Albany, which is a city in NY state. So far, the best translation to the original meaning goes along the lines of "Meaning of "Albany"
In Scottish, the name Albany means- Derived from a former name for northern Scotland.. Other origins for the name Albany include - Scottish, Latin-American, English."

Ok, great, BUT WHAT DOES IT MEAN!!!!

[moutarde]

'Scotland' was employed alongside Albania or Albany, from the Gaelic Alba.

From wikipedia's entry for Alba:

The term first appears in classical texts as Ἀλβίων or Ἀλουΐων (in Ptolemy's writings), later as Albion in Latin documents. Historically, the term refers to Britain as a whole and is ultimately based on the Indo-European root for "white".[1] It later came to be used by Gaelic speakers in the form of Alba (dative Albainn, genitive Albann, now obsolete) as the name given to the former kingdom of the Picts which had by the time of its first usage with this meaning, expanded around the time of king Causantín mac Áeda (Constantine II, 943-952). The region Breadalbane (Bràghad Albainn, the upper part of "Alba") takes its name from it as well.

[Coyotemax]

Yeah, I got that eventually for that specific example, I'm starting to build up a list of reliable sources. But in general, it can be very frustrating for some of the more obscure ones. Especially when it's an obscure family name that founded the town

[moutarde]

I know exactly how you feel. Toponomy can be really, really, frustrating. I've been doing essentially the same thing with my antique wip, and most of earth's country names have pretty simple toponomy, but there's still quite a few where I just had to throw in the towel and say screw it, this one's getting made up.

[Coyotemax]

Right there with you. The REAL fun part is yet to come, I've made a few forays into the "translate into elvish" already, and I have to say, Legolas would probably have a stroke if he read off some of the place names.


the other thing impacting right now is that we just bought a sectional sofa.. and it's coming in a few days, so it's taking me awhile to get the house ready for it - and the wife has ALL SORTS OF IDEAS on other things we need to move around. By the time I'm done working on the house, I have no energy left for the map... probably would have worked better if I'd waited a week or two before picking this project up again. Still, half an hour or so progress per day is better than no progress.