Renaming conlangs
- Chengjiang
- Avisaru
- Posts: 437
- Joined: Sun Feb 26, 2006 4:41 am
- Location: Davis, CA
Renaming conlangs
Do you try to avoid having the name of your conlang sound like other things? I ask because I belatedly Googled Chavakani and while my conlang is the top result, it also appears to be at least a few people’s name. I’m considering renaming the language, although most of the new names I come up with seem to be the name of something else. “Yavakani” appears safe, although I’m not sure I like it.
How important is it to you that your conlang’s name not coincide with the names of real people or places?
How important is it to you that your conlang’s name not coincide with the names of real people or places?
[ʈʂʰɤŋtɕjɑŋ], or whatever you can comfortably pronounce that's close to that
Formerly known as Primordial Soup
Supporter of use of [ȶ ȡ ȵ ȴ] in transcription
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a 青.
Formerly known as Primordial Soup
Supporter of use of [ȶ ȡ ȵ ȴ] in transcription
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a 青.
Re: Renaming conlangs
Generally I don't care. Coincidences will happen anyway, and I've named some of my conlangs after people.
ìtsanso, God In The Mountain, may our names inspire the deepest feelings of fear in urkos and all his ilk, for we have saved another man from his lies! I welcome back to the feast hall kal, who will never gamble again! May the eleven gods bless him!
kårroť
kårroť
Re: Renaming conlangs
I have a conlang named Palli, which is actually now one of my least favorite conlangs, as my tastes were quite different 20 years ago. It has no resemlance to the natlang called Pāli whatsoever, although the climates are fairly similar.
I have a minor, backburner conlang called Lamu, which is also the name of another artist's conlang, and so out of respect I plan to refer to my Lamu as proto-Lamu or perhaps something entirely different whenever I write about it (which will not be often).
I tend to resist changing the names of my conlangs as I work on and reshape the languages themselves. I created an earlu language called Thaoa that didnt even have an /o/; i just liked the digraph "ao". Soon, it didnt have /tʰ/ either.
A lot of my names are no longer meaningful in their source language and therefore I have to consider them exonyms. Poswa should probably be "Puswa", and Khulls, originally intended as a faithful transliteration of the native name, would now at best be "Ḳūlṡ". But, again, exonyms are the magic wand I wave to make all of the names legitimate.
Another thing I do is give names that arent from the source language at all. For example, Moonshine. These are basically code names, but I exlain them as being translations ofg the political parties associated with each language. This works because political party basically equas tribe on this planet. Its not entirely unlike our own designations of tribes such as "White Tai" and "Short Skirt Miao" in southeast Asia.
I have a minor, backburner conlang called Lamu, which is also the name of another artist's conlang, and so out of respect I plan to refer to my Lamu as proto-Lamu or perhaps something entirely different whenever I write about it (which will not be often).
I tend to resist changing the names of my conlangs as I work on and reshape the languages themselves. I created an earlu language called Thaoa that didnt even have an /o/; i just liked the digraph "ao". Soon, it didnt have /tʰ/ either.
A lot of my names are no longer meaningful in their source language and therefore I have to consider them exonyms. Poswa should probably be "Puswa", and Khulls, originally intended as a faithful transliteration of the native name, would now at best be "Ḳūlṡ". But, again, exonyms are the magic wand I wave to make all of the names legitimate.
Another thing I do is give names that arent from the source language at all. For example, Moonshine. These are basically code names, but I exlain them as being translations ofg the political parties associated with each language. This works because political party basically equas tribe on this planet. Its not entirely unlike our own designations of tribes such as "White Tai" and "Short Skirt Miao" in southeast Asia.
And now Sunàqʷa the Sea Lamprey with our weather report:
Re: Renaming conlangs
I have a conlang whose name is Aqadian; does that answer your question? :p To make this more awkward, the Eastern word that gives Aqadian aqad "wetland, swamp," also has a cognate harad "open land, plain, expanse," in a (rather distantly) related language.
Others: a tonal language called Zhong, and before I played The Banner Saga I had a race called the varl, which I have since changed to quarl.
Others: a tonal language called Zhong, and before I played The Banner Saga I had a race called the varl, which I have since changed to quarl.
"But if of ships I now should sing, what ship would come to me,
What ship would bear me ever back across so wide a Sea?”
What ship would bear me ever back across so wide a Sea?”
- Ryan of Tinellb
- Sanci
- Posts: 56
- Joined: Thu Jul 10, 2014 9:10 am
Re: Renaming conlangs
Lulani is an Hawai'ian name. My name for the goddess Sa'imi is Caemi, which was an acronym for a particular Brazillian mining company, which makes reading that Wikipedia article quite odd.
So, no, I don't rename languages. Unless someone actually complained, I guess. Could I get away with having a conlang called 'Apple iPad' if I had in-universe etymological justification?
So, no, I don't rename languages. Unless someone actually complained, I guess. Could I get away with having a conlang called 'Apple iPad' if I had in-universe etymological justification?
High Lulani and other conlangs at tinellb.com
Re: Renaming conlangs
I fit most of my (non-Akana) conlangs into the planet of Edomor. It owes a great deal of inspiration to our Boardlord's work. I'm embarrassed to admit that I got carried away at one point and Edomor became er a little too inspired. Thankfully, I went to college and studied the Middle East and linguistics in general. Now, the entire project contains new influences (Arabic, Turkish, Islamic history) that give it a whole new dimension while respecting Zomp's original works
A New Yorker wrote:Isn't it sort of a relief to talk about the English Premier League instead of the sad state of publishing?
Shtåså, Empotle7á, Neire WippwoAbi wrote:At this point it seems pretty apparent that PIE was simply an ancient esperanto gone awry.
Re: Renaming conlangs
Do you want to know what that happens to mean in Finnish?Pabappa wrote:I have a conlang named Palli
More: show
Re: Renaming conlangs
In my variety of Malayalam, it means 'gecko'.
- bbbosborne
- Sanci
- Posts: 70
- Joined: Mon Jul 03, 2017 6:44 pm
Re: Renaming conlangs
i have a conlang named forish, which happens to be the name of a district in uzbekistan. coincidentally, uzbek's phonology is quite similar to forish.
bbb
bbb
Re: Renaming conlangs
I named one of my conlangs Ga. Built it a website and everything for it. Turned out that Ga is a real language. So I nixed the website and used ideas from the conlang as the basis for other things.
Re: Renaming conlangs
Varta Avina is the closest to being anything problematic. Well, except for its exonym, which I never use anyway.
Imagine what Arka had to go through.
Imagine what Arka had to go through.
- Frislander
- Avisaru
- Posts: 836
- Joined: Mon Feb 29, 2016 6:34 am
- Location: The North
Re: Renaming conlangs
Frisland looks and sounds very similar to Friesland, which is why I called my conlang "Frislandian" and not "Frisian", though I like the idea of "Frislandic" as an alternative name. I'm not gonna change it though because the name has already existed for some 4 centuries now, so I'm happy with it as it is.
Re: Renaming conlangs
You could take the route I did for the Texan Austrian language and call it Frislanderish (Oehsteraijix coming from Oehsteraij "Austrian person" and -ix, which is a cognate of German -isch).
ìtsanso, God In The Mountain, may our names inspire the deepest feelings of fear in urkos and all his ilk, for we have saved another man from his lies! I welcome back to the feast hall kal, who will never gamble again! May the eleven gods bless him!
kårroť
kårroť
- Frislander
- Avisaru
- Posts: 836
- Joined: Mon Feb 29, 2016 6:34 am
- Location: The North
Re: Renaming conlangs
Somehow that just seems clunky to me (I'd even say Frislandish sounds better), I prefer the ideas I've got. Also Frislandian isn't Germanic or even Indo-European so I don't think it really matters which I go for.mèþru wrote:You could take the route I did for the Texan Austrian language and call it Frislanderish (Oehsteraijix coming from Oehsteraij "Austrian person" and -ix, which is a cognate of German -isch).
Re: Renaming conlangs
Wait, I made mistake. Oehsteraij is just Austria. So Frislandish is actually the equivalent anyway. What I said would be Oehsteraijerix, which sounds awful.
ìtsanso, God In The Mountain, may our names inspire the deepest feelings of fear in urkos and all his ilk, for we have saved another man from his lies! I welcome back to the feast hall kal, who will never gamble again! May the eleven gods bless him!
kårroť
kårroť
- Chengjiang
- Avisaru
- Posts: 437
- Joined: Sun Feb 26, 2006 4:41 am
- Location: Davis, CA
Re: Renaming conlangs
I noticed an additional reason to change Chavakani’s name: It’s uncomfortably close to the name of an actual language, Chavacano.
I’m going to change it to Twakani, which doesn’t appear to be the name of anything notable. Two additional syllables is far enough from Twa that I’m not terribly concerned.
I’m going to change it to Twakani, which doesn’t appear to be the name of anything notable. Two additional syllables is far enough from Twa that I’m not terribly concerned.
[ʈʂʰɤŋtɕjɑŋ], or whatever you can comfortably pronounce that's close to that
Formerly known as Primordial Soup
Supporter of use of [ȶ ȡ ȵ ȴ] in transcription
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a 青.
Formerly known as Primordial Soup
Supporter of use of [ȶ ȡ ȵ ȴ] in transcription
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a 青.
- Salmoneus
- Sanno
- Posts: 3197
- Joined: Thu Jan 15, 2004 5:00 pm
- Location: One of the dark places of the world
Re: Renaming conlangs
Hey! Rik was here!Rik wrote:I named one of my conlangs Ga. Built it a website and everything for it. Turned out that Ga is a real language. So I nixed the website and used ideas from the conlang as the basis for other things.
Blog: [url]http://vacuouswastrel.wordpress.com/[/url]
But the river tripped on her by and by, lapping
as though her heart was brook: Why, why, why! Weh, O weh
I'se so silly to be flowing but I no canna stay!
But the river tripped on her by and by, lapping
as though her heart was brook: Why, why, why! Weh, O weh
I'se so silly to be flowing but I no canna stay!
- Frislander
- Avisaru
- Posts: 836
- Joined: Mon Feb 29, 2016 6:34 am
- Location: The North
Re: Renaming conlangs
Waaay! Which leads me to ask why there hasn't been an update to the website in ages, or a update to the Gevey grammar when there is an entire thread on the board about rewriting it to make it consistent with current linguistic description?Salmoneus wrote:Hey! Rik was here!Rik wrote:I named one of my conlangs Ga. Built it a website and everything for it. Turned out that Ga is a real language. So I nixed the website and used ideas from the conlang as the basis for other things.