Weird Unit Name?

**Emperor Arcturus Mengsk** · February 02, 2015, 07:04 PM

I was wondering if this Masaesyli unit name is legit? Or some forgotten placeholder? It's named "GLDGMTK", some kind of armored skirmisher cavalry unit?

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

**Augustusng** · February 02, 2015, 07:11 PM

That's taken from Europa Barbarorum. Scroll down on this page (or ctrl+f) for their explanation. But yeah, it does seem very weird. I assume whatever Numidian writing system was used on those inscriptions the EB page mentions doesn't write vowels or something. Maybe there's a better way to write it, but I don't know.

**Emperor Arcturus Mengsk** · February 02, 2015, 07:16 PM

Originally Posted by Augustusng

That's taken from Europa Barbarorum. Scroll down on this page (or ctrl+f) for their explanation. But yeah, it does seem very weird. I assume whatever Numidian writing system was used on those inscriptions the EB page mentions doesn't write vowels or something. Maybe there's a better way to write it, but I don't know.

Interesting! Thanks

**Butan** · February 02, 2015, 08:42 PM

From the page Augustus mentionned:

The term GLDGMTK used here is from the Libyan dialect spoken by the Numidians and comes from several noble titles on inscriptions from the town of Thugga. The title translates loosely as 'Prefect of Fifty'. The other common title in Thugga was 'Chief of One Hundred'.

I would like people to try to spell GLDGMTK in their homes

**GourmetGorilla** · February 03, 2015, 01:18 AM

Another fun bit of trivia - the desert scenes in Star Wars Episode IV were filmed in Tunisia, and it is a known fact that George Lucas derived the name of the planet Tatooine from the city of Tataouine where much of the filming took place. This is just my guess, but I'll bet that the Mos Eisley Cantina was named after the Massaesyli of Eastern Numidia. The similarity in pronunciation is uncanny, to say the least.

**Butan** · February 02, 2015, 08:41 PM

double post.

**GourmetGorilla** · February 03, 2015, 01:08 AM

The Berber people no longer speak the Numidian tongue, which is a long-forgotten abjad language. Since then Old Numidian has been amalgamated with Arabic and other languages to become what it is today, and on top of that it barely survived a period of severe repression under French colonialism from 1881-1943. Thanks to their nomadic tendencies, the Berbers more or less saved their language in a modified form, but we'll probably never know how they pronounced obsolete terms like Gldmtk. It could have been galadagmatak, but that's just what it would look like if you arbitrarily tossed the letter A into the gaps. Another example from an abjad language-family would be the Semitic
s-l-m root. The names Solomon, Salem, and Salome are all written with the same consonant-root. I thank my lucky stars that the Capital of Oregon doesn't stem from a dead language.