COMMUNITY - FORUMS - TRIBES
Tribe Naming Conventions

Based on the surname reservation generator, and what we know (or what we think we know) of the languages thus far, I'll draw some comparisons between tribes and RL cultures. Might help some pick out lore-appropriate names as a guideline. Language evolves, and...honestly, most speak either Neran or Croçais anyway, so there is no name that wouldn't "fit". I'm no language prof or anything of the sort, so this is really a series of educated guesses. Discuss?

Brudvir - Nordic, though some of the generated surnames sound a little Celtic.

Dras - Eastern European. Apparently, the language features the letters ç, ó, and ÿ, but not letters b, c, f, or q.

Hrothi - A little hard for me to pin down. A little Germanic, a little Celtic...Næroth has many accented letters, and trying to pronounce some of the names the generator spits out, I feel like I'm talking with a mouthful of peanut butter.

Janoa - Surnames the generator produces sound broadly African, and sometimes similar to words in various Aboriginal/Native American languages. Jenu is apparently a very "staccato" language, and from what I've read, accented vowels indicate a stress, so that seems to add up to me. C, f, q, and x are not used.

Kypiq - Uses ß, but not c or x. I don't even know, man. Some of the generated names sound a little Germanic, some a bit Arabic, some sound Native American, and some sound like complete gibberish.

Neran - The Neran language is equated to English, though I really don't notice any pattern from generated surnames. Anything goes?

To'resk - Croçais doesn't use "p", and is a softer, more flowing language. I hear French in it, and some vaguely Eastern European names come out of the generator, too.

Waerd - I hear a combination of Hindi, Arabic, and Native American.


7/25/2018 6:25:48 AM #1

I think of Neran as what English could have turned out to be if it had some different influences in Anglo-Saxon times. Some of the names remind me of some of the weirder place names in England.

I don't see Dras as being like Eastern European languages, or at least not anything Slavic. It has way too many vowels in its words for that.


2/24/2019 1:01:05 AM #2

I was wondering about this when playing around with the generator. I thought it would be helpful to have comparisons to actual languages just in terms of the general way the language sounds.

A phonetic alphabet for each language would be helpful. For example, J makes a specific sound in English, but a different sound in Spanish and yet another sound in German. So in these languages, what sound is denoted by what letter?

I mean, ultimately, I'll just make up whatever name I want, regardless, but I wanted to get a feel for how the names should sound and found that pronunciation of generated names is difficult when you don't know the rules of the alphabet. Given what's been said about language and communication in game, I imagine they have this info already, just haven't released it yet, but that's why I thought something like just giving a real-world example that sounds similar would suffice.

Also, I would think the Dras and Janoan languages would be related, since they evolved from the same tribe in more recent history when compared with the rest of Mann. Not like they would be able to understand each other now, but that they wouldn't be as far apart as African and Eastern European like the OP guessed.


reptiles are misunderstood and unforgiven ~ unknown

2/24/2019 5:05:23 PM #3

Hrothi - A little hard for me to pin down. A little Germanic, a little Celtic...Næroth has many accented letters, and trying to pronounce some of the names the generator spits out, I feel like I'm talking with a mouthful of peanut butter.

So, danish then?


Count LizenÇace VeLeîjres of Mydra's Crossing, VII of the order of the IX.

Order of IX