Nation names ??

Endoperez · #1 March 11th, 2004, 03:18 PM

I'm not really sure of the "Man", but I think it has something to do with a hebrean word "adam"...

Really, that should be quite easy to quess.

Scandinavians will propably know this, but for others this might be new:
Jotunheim and Vanheim are simply Jotun Home and Van Home. In fact Jotunheim is near some sort of Glacier in Sweden (or then not, my memory has done me ugly things before).

Pythium comees from Pythia, which was some kind of a god/dess, IIRC. Also I think it means snake.

Marignon is pseudo-french, or atleast I think it is.

Ulm exists, it is a place in Germany. The intelligence of Ulmians, or lack of it, is joking matter in Germany, or so I have heard...

Machaka seems to be the sound produced when you whack people with long sticks with a blade in the end.

Mictlan is pseudo-aztek, I think.

Caelum and Abysia come from Latin, from the words meaning Heaven and Hell. Or maybe High and Low, or some such, but you get the idea...

Pangaea is the great continent that existed when earth was young, and has then broken to Europe, N&S America etc.

Most know Atlantis, the mystical continent that supposedly went down to the bottom of the Atlantic. (better wording, please)

T'ien C'hi propably means something. At least Google finds 3000+ pages...

And R'lyeh comes from Cthulhu mythos created by H.P. Lovecraft, man who didn't believe to thepower of names...

I have no idea about C'tis, Arcoschepale or Ermor.
Okay, or from Machaka. But that wasn't bad quess,was it?

EDITed 3 times: only for typos! I should learn to preview my Posts first!

[ March 11, 2004, 13:21: Message edited by: Endoperez ]

chtronk · #2 March 11th, 2004, 03:33 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Endoperez:
Marignon is pseudo-french, or atleast I think it is.

Hmm... I'm french, and I can't find out what it could mean.
The battle of Marignan is well known in France (battle between Francois I's troops and the Swiss mercenaries in Italy in 1515), but the Marignon nation could be compared to 15th century Spain (with it's nquisitors) and 12th century France (sacred knights ~ crusaders).

[ March 11, 2004, 13:34: Message edited by: chtronk ]

fahdiz · #3 March 11th, 2004, 03:48 PM

Perhaps it's a play-on-words for Merovingian? Not sure.

Maximillian · #4 March 11th, 2004, 04:33 PM

Tien Chi is a Chinese word meaning literally "Heaven and Earth", or figuratively meaning the whole Universe.

I'm guessing the IW devs added the guttoral stop(') to make the words look (and sound?) more "different", but in actual romanized Chinese it's simply written "Tien Chi", with some added lines to specify the intonation.

The pronounciation for "Tien" is something like "Tea + Ann", spoken continuously (somewhat like how "Sigh + Ann" becomes "Cyan"). "Chi" is pronounced as "Chee" (as you pronounce "cheek").

[ March 11, 2004, 14:46: Message edited by: Maximillian ]

MCArt · #5 March 11th, 2004, 05:20 PM

Caelum - the latin word for sky or heaven.

Machaka - either a Bantu weapon, probably some sort of sword or battle axe, or men wielding such a weapon.
Chaka/Shaka was also a warlord and the founder of the Zulu state.

Mictlan - the Aztec underworld, ruled by the Lord of Mictlan (Mictlipochtli?)

Pythium - the pythia was the Oracle of Apollon

[ March 11, 2004, 15:24: Message edited by: MCArt ]

Arryn · #6 March 11th, 2004, 05:38 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Endoperez:
Pangaea is the great continent that existed when earth was young, and has then broken to Europe, N&S America etc.

And the word itself means "spanning/encompassing the globe/world" ie: global. BTW, Pangaea existed in the Mesozoic era, circa 300 to 200 million years ago, when the world was already far past being "young". The Earth itself is FAR older, at ~4.6 billion years.

For more info, check out the following two links: "snapshots" and breakup animation

ywl · #7 March 11th, 2004, 11:19 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Maximillian:
Tien Chi is a Chinese word meaning literally "Heaven and Earth", or figuratively meaning the whole Universe.

I'm guessing the IW devs added the guttoral stop(') to make the words look (and sound?) more "different", but in actual romanized Chinese it's simply written "Tien Chi", with some added lines to specify the intonation.

The pronounciation for "Tien" is something like "Tea + Ann", spoken continuously (somewhat like how "Sigh + Ann" becomes "Cyan"). "Chi" is pronounced as "Chee" (as you pronounce "cheek").

Depends... There is more than one way to romanize Chinese characters. Tien Chi is definitely not Pin Yin, the official method for the mainland China.

I'm Chinese and I have absolutely no idea what Tien Chi means

.

Tien does sound likes sky or heaven but the right PinYin for that should be Tian. Chi sound like many things but earth... The closest thing I can think of that sounds like Tien Chi is something like the Lake (or Pond) of Heaven. Or the Dynasty of Heaven - if you pronounce Chi in a funny way...

I guess we'll need the developer of Dominions to tell us where they get the words from.

The names in the game are mostly historical figure in Pin Yin. I have the suspicion that they lifted the names directly from the game "Romance of the Three Kingdom". Non-Chinese might not feel it but it actually feels weird for me to have a general called Lui-Bei under you - imaging having one of your knights called King Arthur...

The three immortals are three of the eight mythical figures in legends, or more exactly fairy tales. The pronounciation there is not Pin Yin though.

So, you see how confused I am when I'm looking at all these different names.

[ March 11, 2004, 21:21: Message edited by: ywl ]

Agrajag · #8 August 16th, 2004, 08:05 AM

Quote:

Endoperez said:
Pythium comees from Pythia, which was some kind of a god/dess, IIRC. Also I think it means snake.

Just wanted to point out that peten is a type of snake in hebrew, a "Cobra" or a "Mamba" when translated into english (atleast according to the dictionary

Vicious Love · #9 August 16th, 2004, 08:22 AM

Actually, it's an adder. I believe the correct phonetic spelling is "pethen", but a soft "t" and the "th" dipthong are almost completely indistinguishable in Hebrew, except in special cases.
Then again, the exact pronunciation of the more ancient forms of Hebrew has always been a point of contention for linguists.

Agrajag · #10 August 16th, 2004, 08:30 AM

Quote:

Vicious Love said:
Actually, it's an adder. I believe the correct phonetic spelling is "pethen", but a soft "t" and the "th" dipthong are almost completely indistinguishable in Hebrew, except in special cases.
Then again, the exact pronunciation of the more ancient forms of Hebrew has always been a point of contention for linguists.

Hmmm...
Coming from a man who lives (and was born in) Israel I can tell you its pronounced at Peten.
HOWEVER!
In ancient Hebrew (more like Aramit, however you write that in english) it was probably pronounces Pethen.
You see, in those ancient times the letter "Taf" (as it is called today) could be pronounced either as T or as TH, depending on special punctuation, that punctuation still exists in "Modern" Hebrew, but it is disregarded and unpronounced, so it IS a Peten.