Nation names ??

[chtronk]

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]

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

[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").

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

[MCArt]

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]

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]

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 ]

[Wauthan]

Jotunheim - Realm (heim can mean kingdom, home and world aswell tough) of the Giants. The place were evil dwelled. The great and terrible wolf Fenrir was enfettered there until the coming of Ragnarok. In Jotunheim there was a mighty fortress called Utgard.

Vanheim - Realm of the Vanir. The Vanir was a kind of rivaling family of gods mentioned here and there in the old Aesir mythology. Frey, Freya and Njord were three vanir gods that joined the Aesir pantheon, through a dubious trade.

Midgard - Middle Earth, but after some recent movies everyone knows that.

Nifelheim - The mistshrouded realm. The land of darkness and unbearable cold. Within it lies Helheim (or simply Hel, so named after the godess who rules it), the realm of the dead.

Muspelheim - The worldpyre. The opposite of Neifelheim. Not featured in the game but a possibility for a mod perhaps. Would love to see Surt and other giants of fire.

[deccan]

ywl said:
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...

Hmm, closest phonetically is 天气 but I really doubt they wanted the word for weather.

天地 would be meaningful but sounds nowhere close. 天子 meaning "Son of Heaven" might be a good bet.

ywl said:
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...

Worst for me was having an eunuch named "Kwan Yin".

ywl said:
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.

Good catch, I didn't know that.

Sorry about the formatting. UBB doesn't like Chinese.