Etruscan settlements name

[alelarth]

Hi, I have a question..do you use latin/roman names for the Etruscan settlements, or the etrurian names? I say that because the etruscan language was very different from other italic indoeuropean languages, and more similar to modern finnish or basque that to modern italian!
In case you need it I'll write some known traslation of etruscan city name, hope it will be useful

Tarquinia= Tarchna
Caere= Cysra
Vetulonia= Vatl
Populonia= Fufluna
Volterrae= Velathri
Volsinii= Velzna
Vulci= Velch
Cortona= Curtun, Kurtun
Clusium= Clevsi(n)

[kaikayne]

Isnt modern Basque VERY similar to modern italian?

edit:sry i guess it isnt

[alelarth]

No, it isn't....Basque is a non-indoeurpean agglutinant language (agglutinant=To form (words) by combining words or words and word elements). Italian is directly descending from latin, that was an indoeuropean language, and its sound and grammar are very different from basque, and more similar to other european languages like french spanish portuguese and romanian. Basque is a pretty unique language in europe..

From wikipedia: Geographically surrounded by Indo-European languages, Basque is classified as a language isolate, the last remaining pre-Indo-European language in Europe.[3] Consequently its prehistory may not be reconstructible by means of the comparative method except by applying it to language internal dialectal differences. Little is known of its origins but it is likely that an early form of the Basque language was present in Western Europe before the arrival of the Indo-European languages to the area.
Latin inscriptions in Aquitania preserve a number of words with cognates in proto-Basque, for instance the personal names Nescato and Cison (neskato and gizon mean "young girl" and "man" respectively in modern Basque[4]). This proposed language is called "Aquitanian" and was presumably spoken before the Romans brought Latin to the western Pyrenees. Roman neglect of this hinterland allowed Aquitanian Basque to survive while the Iberian and Tartessian languages died out. Basque did come to acquire some Latin vocabulary, both before and after the Latin of the area developed into Gascon (a branch of Occitan) in the northeast, Aragonese in the southeast, and Spanish in the southwest.
In June 2006, Montserrat Rius at the site of Iruña-Veleia claimed to find an epigraphic set with a series of 270 Basque inscriptions and drawings from the third century.[5] Some of the words and phrases found were "urdin" (blue), "zuri" (white), "gori" (red), "edan" (drink) "ian" (eat), "lo" (sleep), "iesus iose ata ta mirian ama" (Jesus [with] the father Joseph and the mother Mary), and "geure ata zutan" (Our father in you). These words are remarkably similar to modern Basque. However the whole finding has come under serious question, even to the point of tarnishing Rius's scholarly pedigree.[6]

Latin (lingua Latīna, pronounced [laˈtiːna]) is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Through the Roman conquest, Latin spread throughout the Mediterranean and a large part of Europe. Such languages as French, Italian, Romanian, Spanish, and Portuguese inherited a large part of the Latin vocabulary and grammar. It was also the international language of science and scholarship in central and Western Europe until the 17th century. There are two varieties of Latin: Classical Latin, the literary dialect used in poetry and prose, and Vulgar Latin, the form of the language spoken by ordinary people. Vulgar Latin was preserved as a spoken language in much of Europe after the decline of the Roman Empire, and by the 9th century diverged into the various Romance languages.

[SigniferOne]

We're using the Latin versions for nearly all settlement names, excepting the Greeks. Giving Etruscans unique settlement names might've been interesting, but then every other culture would demand their own spelling and where do you draw the line with that? I don't necessarily agree with EB's naming philosophy. Latinization of names is the most appropriate solution for a latin alphabet (such as English), and also the most recognizable version of a name, which is extremely important to us. ease-of-use and accessibility is one of the primary emphases in PItalica. For instance we didn't latinize Roman names either (caivs), but kept them accessible (Gaius). I don't really care "how it looked to them back then". I care about "how relevant can it be to us right now".

[alelarth]

Thanks Signifer One for the answer ..I thought it would be intresting to give some pre-latin name in a pre-latin italic mod, but I fully understand the point of view you have explained in your previous topic. Bye and keep on the your great work

[SigniferOne]

Again, the issue would be where do you draw the line? After every non-Latin settlement is transformed into unrecognizable gibberish (because none others are in latin alphabet), who is the only one left out? The user. Right now they could read Livy about Tarquinii and go right back and see it in the game. No Livy translation goes for Tarchna spelling, and so we too are trying to get the most accessible interface to the user, because a lot of our subjects are already less familiar to him.

[Hister]

I agree on the matter with Siggy here! If we would to apply local languages we would have a huge mix of known local names and unknown one's remaining in latin - not very nice is it?

[alelarth]

Again, I understand your reasons Signifer One, you're right, the user come first..so the latin names are effectively better for an eventual historical research by the user. The alphabet doesn't matter 'cause you can re-write every name (even chinese!!) in latin alphabet, but latin is surely more accesible, there's no discussion

post scriptum: sorry for my english, I hope to explain my opinions clearly

[Hister]

Yeah sure, your English is very good. You can still rename those settlements yourself if you want when the mod comes out

[alelarth]

thx ..cool, I didn't tought to this option

[Basil 11]

I have to agree with Signifer on this one...

[The Colonel]

in a mod called 1143 about the reconquista, the settlement names changed from arabic to spanish when the spanish conquered a moorish settelement. Can't you do the same that when romans conquer a settlement, it changes to its latin name?

[SigniferOne]

Sure, that's a nice possibility once all the other issues get settled down.

[SigniferOne]

Having had some time to think about it, now I too would really like to see the feature where you rename Etruscan towns under Roman names (them having started under Etruscan titles like "Tarchna"). This would give a great sense of the blanket steely expansion of the Roman culture upon all the areas surrounding it.

Hopefully this''ll get done in one of our beta versions.

[alelarth]

cool faeture!!