💾 Archived View for thrig.me › blog › 2023 › 04 › 27 › names2.gmi captured on 2023-07-22 at 16:56:31. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
⬅️ Previous capture (2023-05-24)
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la tcatypatxu poi terme'e le jupypatxu zo xekri
Kettle is an odd name, though might be serviceable as "thunderhelm", even if the Helm of Thunder does see duty as a pot. Pass the beans? Here we take the liberty of quoting Lord Dunsany in detail.
"Master, there be two things necessary in the wars, strategy and cooking. Now the first of these comes in use when the captains speak of their achievements and the historians write of the wars... but while the war rageth upon the foughten field then is the time for cooking; for many a man that fights the wars, if he hath not his food, were well content to let the enemy live"
-- "The Chronicles of Rodriguez". Lord Dunsany. 1922.
The above lojban name runs something like Kettle Who Calls Pot Black. Names, now with an editorial section.
With her moods of shade and sunshine,
Eyes that smiled and frowned alternate,
Feet as rapid as the river,
Tresses flowing like the water,
And as musical a laughter:
And he named her from the river,
From the water-fall he named her,
Minnehaha, Laughing Water.
-- "The Song Of Hiawatha". Henry W. Longfellow. 1855.
Here "fast" would be most suitable, which matches the original; one could also use laughing but that is more likely to cause confusion in readers. Water might be expected to be rapid--oh, yeah, I've seen that--but is less likely to be associated with laughter. Except by poets, who are by and large a strange bunch; "Thieves and Kings" (Mark Oakley, 1994) has a panel where the Wizard was reminding himself not to let two artists marry. So in lojban Minnehaha might be:
la sutra djacu
la cmila djacu
But djacu maybe isn't a good name for Minnehaha (the pronunciation is similar to "Josh" or dʒɑːʃ after you've had an IPA or two) so perhaps instead
la mi'arlitki
from {cmila litki} or the equivalent {litki do'e le cmila}, "liquid in some way associated with laughter". sutlitki might also work? Translation is teh hard.
"I am known as Mafiikyy. It means one who jumps high... I stood up that night and tell everyone of how I killed the flyer. It is true it is a strong fighter, but perhaps I boast too much. I sit down again on my blanket. Rock-mouse has crawled into a fold for warmth. I sit on the rock-mouse. He is angry and bites me very hard. I jump very high, yell very loud in surprise. So I am given that as a small-name."
-- "Beast Master's Ark". Andre Norton and Lyn McConchie. 2003.
Context-sensitive naming also happens in "Dune". Probably this does not make the life of a biographer or historian any easier. These days I guess we use numbers instead of names. 11344456498396606844, perhaps.
"I'm not a number. I'm a free man!" [laughter]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nW-bFGzNMXw