- INVASIO BARBARORVM III -

[Tryggvi]

I chose to use Hairumans since the latin term Arimannus is attested for the Lombard warrior class.

As far as I inderstand, arimanni are rather cognate with harjamans, 'army men'. Still, there is no mistake. If you need such an allusion, use Hairumans.

Imo with a game intended for an audience familiar with English it's better to use this without the article, as far as unit names are concerned.

Sounds reasonable.

[Magister Militum Flavius Aetius]

Settlements look good (A few pellings are a tad off... e.g. Turasio is Tyrassio, Narbo should be Narbona, Argentorate should be Argentoratum). Provinces have a bit to be desired (Lucania et Calabria should be Apulia et Calabria, Vasconia/Asturia et Cantabria should just be Taraconensis or I guess you could shift Septum Provinciae south into Vasconia if you had to).

Some of the Germanic areas should be fairly easy... others not so much. According to M. Spiedel the swamps on the Danubian bend were actually called Myrkwalde (LOTR's Myrkwood, anyone?).

What I don't get about the map is how the grand campaign has Vikings and a Charlemagne era campaign doesn't...

[Charerg]

Well, I think Myrkwalde is from an Icelandic saga that features the Goths and the Huns. The poem also features a sword named Tyrfing (this has been compared to the name Thervingi), but there is no real evidence where the "myrkwalde" may have been in real life, if it even was a real place. I think the relevant passage is this:

Sunnan em ek kominn
at segja spjöll þessi:
sviðin er öll mörk
ok Myrkviðar heiðr,
drifin öll Goðþjóð
gumna blóði.

Mey veit ek Heiðreks,
systur þína,svigna til jarðar;
hafa Húnar
hana fellda
ok marga aðra
yðra þegna,

léttari gerðist hún at böðen
við biðil ræða'
eða í bekk at fara
at brúðar gangi.

"From the south I've come
to say this news:
burnt is Mirkwood Heath
and the whole forest,
Goth-folk all blotched
with blood of men.

Down, I hear,
is Heidrek's lass;
heard your sister,
the Huns felled her —
and of your people
plenty more.

More cheery in battle
than chatting to suitors
or taking the bench
at a bridal feast."

While the saga may have some basis in truth, it's by no means a historical document. There's a lot of later elements like the existence of Gardariki mixed in.

Anyway, I made the suggested corrections to the provinces and the settlements. I haven't even started looking into the Germanic provinces, but any suggestions for important settlements and province names would be welcome. Here are the updated maps:



Edit:
Apparently Myrkviðr is featured in several sagas, but there are a lot of candidates as to which place the name refers to.

[Charerg]

Ok, I've made some progress with the map again. Since Ptolemy's Geography is probably the only source that includes both the locations and the names of settlements in Roman-era Germania, that is what I'm using as a source. It may be possible to connect some of the names that appear in Ptolemy to later settlements, although such connections are always a bit uncertain (Ptolemy's Lupfurdum -> modern Leipzig would be an example). The matter of naming the settlements is complicated by the fact that there are no written Germanic languages from the era other than Gothic. Ofc, it's a possibility to use Old English and other languages that are attested from a later date. However, at this point I'm using the Greek/Latin names that appear in the Geographia.

So, here is my attempt to map out Ptolemy's "Magna Germania". Note that I didn't strive for absolute accuracy, so there may be errors, and since Ptolemy's geography itself contains errors (with probably some errors added by the people who copied the text through the Middle Ages), this should be considered as simply as one interpretation of the text. With that in mind, first off here are the landmarks such as mountains and major rivers, and the associated coordinates (as supplied by Ptolemy):



The yellowish areas are the mountains according to the coordinates provided by Ptolemy (so you can refer to how Ptolemy "thought" the mountain chains were oriented).

The names are a bit off, since I mixed some Greek and Latin there, but should be recognizable (I used both the translation on Res Historiae and the one on LacusCurtius, so the terminolog is a bit "mixed" at times). I further emphasize that I'm less than certain of where exactly some coordinates are. For example, Ptolemy gives coordinates for three mouths of the Rhine. Since he places Lugdunum Batavorum at the mouth of the westernmost of these, the western mouth is fairly reliably located (x 26.3; y 53.2). With the others it's a bit of a guess. The coordinates even differ at times between the two online translations (I went with the Res Historiae version with the Rhine), so there's some guesswork involved. Similarly, what point exactly should be considered the "source" of a river is somewhat arbitrary.

With that in mind, here's the map of the settlements (I omitted the settlements close to the Danube, since we have that area pretty well covered already):


Once again, a lot of the placements are fairly arbitrary, but I provided the coordinates for each settlement, so you can cross-reference the "landmark map" and try to guess where the actual location might have been.

And finally, here is the first concept for the settlements within Germania:


As the map shows, Denmark and a few settlements in Pannonia still need to be added. If anyone has suggestions or information regarding the choice of Germanic settlements, those would be welcome indeed!

EDIT:
Btw, the Rhine Delta in the "landmark map" is the more correct one. I had a lot of trouble with that area initially (along the lines of: wtf was that old man smoking, these coordinates don't make any sense!) until I realised that the Delta looked totally different in the Roman era from what it is today.

[Charerg]

Time for another update:

I've finally completed the settlement naming process (though some names are bound to change), although the provinces aren't finished yet. Here are the present versions of the settlements and the provinces:

Provinces:


Notes on the provinces:
- I changed Britannia Secunda into Deywr (eventually became the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Deira), since the area is lost to the Romans at this point it makes sense to give it a native name.
- I also added some province names in Germania, though I'm not 100% sure if the spellings are correct. Input on these would be much appreciated.

Settlements:


Notes on the settlements:
- Since I found it impossible to find any settlement names for Jutland, I had to improvise here. I replaced Hedeby with what I think would be the Old English equivalent (Haethabyrig). With Ribe I went with a somewhat far-fetched reconstruction, and used the name Rippa (a 6th century Angle king according to Nennius): so Rippanceastre (Rippa's city). With Aarhus I decided to name it as "Juthome" (Yteham) in homage to the mythological Jötunheimr. Once again, suggestions are welcome if there is something more accurate available.
- Also, I changed Marionis into Warnamuntha (mouth of the Warna), since there is a modern settlement by the name of Warnemunde at the mouth of the river Warnow, and there is a good chance that the names are connected to the historical Varini. I decided to play it safe and use the proto-Germanic *munthaz for "mouth", although I dropped the -z since this doesn't seem to be preserved in later Germanic languages.

Edit:
One thing that came to mind is that the Danes could possibly be added into Jutland as a horde, to give the Angles and the Jutes an incentive to migrate into Britain. There also might have been conflict ca. 450 between the Danes and the Frisians, at least if the Anglo-Saxon poem detailing the event is based on actual history.

Edit2:
I changed Yteham into Ytingaham (home of the Jut people), this should be more accurate (compare to Snotingaham, for example).

[Tryggvi]

Rippanceastre

It's borrowing from Latin castrum. May be, it's better to use burg?

Haethabyrig

Why byrig? It's Nom.Pl. or Dat.Sg. of burg.

[Charerg]

It's borrowing from Latin castrum. May be, it's better to use burg?

Why byrig? It's Nom.Pl. or Dat.Sg. of burg.

Good points there, I admit my research regarding the use of byrig was very limited. I'll change those two to Rippanburg and Haethaburg. Any suggestions for naming the rest of the Germanic settlements? Treva is modern Hamburg (probably), whereas Fabiranum was likely Bremen. With Bergium I think it might have been modern Bamberg (possibly named after the nearby Babenberch castle, first mentioned in 902), in the very least the location is accurate (since the place is Hallstadt in AoC map, close to Bamberg). I'm thinking Bathanberga might be a decent reconstruction based on Proto-Germanic *bathan and *bergaz.

Btw, what do you think of Thuringau? I guess the tribal name was probably Thunaringas (people of Thunor) so maybe Thunaringau would be a better province name?

Edit:
Also, a question for MMFA: wasn't Mogontiacum Frankish territory, so maybe it should belong to the Salii rather than the Thuringii?

[Tryggvi]

Any suggestions for naming the rest of the Germanic settlements?

As for historical research, I can hardly help you. As for linguistic advice, I think, I don't entirely understand your approach. It seems that you use neither Proto-Germanic nor later attested Germanic languages (Old Saxon, Old High German, etc.). Of course, the TWA epoch is just between the first one and the second ones (besides Gothic). Do you try to reconstruct that 'transitional' languages that lay 'between'? Frankly speaking, I don't feel I could give you trustworthy suggestions about these languages. At least, less trustworthy than about Gothic. However, I have something interesting for you (see PM).

Btw, what do you think of Thuringau? I guess the tribal name was probably Thunaringas (people of Thunir) so maybe Thunaringau would be a better province name?

Well, I haven't met proven etymoligies for that yet. What is Thunir? If you mean Thor/Donar, that is quite unlikely, even phonetically. However, as far as I know, Thuringii are treated as East Germanic tribe. Can we use Gothic then? German Gau is Gothic gawi. Then it could be Thuringagawi (if without reconstructions).

[Magister Militum Flavius Aetius]

Also, a question for MMFA: wasn't Mogontiacum Frankish territory, so maybe it should belong to the Salii rather than the Thuringii?

Actually it was Roman, but I'd give it to the Salii or Alemanni, yeah.

Instead of Tude I'd go with Portus Turonum (Sacked by the Vandals in 445)

[Charerg]

@ Tryggvi:

Thunor was the Old English name for Thor, yes. If the etymology is unknown, I suppose we'll just have to use the Latin stem Thuring-. I thought the Thuringians fell into the Elbe Germanic (aka Irminonic) group (along with the Alamanni and the Langobards), although I guess the classification could be somewhat arbitrary owing to the scarcity of evidence for these dialects. That said, I guess using Gothic terms for the tribe is a possibility, it is after all the only known truly contemporary Germanic language.

And yes, I tried to achieve something between Proto-Germanic and Old Saxon/Old High German. Mostly because I feel the existence of Gothic alone testifies that Proto-Germanic was no longer spoken at this date. As for not using straight up Old Saxon or Old High German, I found it quite difficult to find good sources for those on the internet, so I used Proto-Germanic words as a basis, but got rid of the -z suffix in order to achieve a slightly more "modern" word. That said, if you know any sufficiently comprehensive dictionaries of Old Saxon/OHG, those might be used instead.

@ MMFA:

I could find little on Portus Turonum via googling. Is the location known to have been in the Galician coast?

[Tryggvi]

thought the Thuringians fell into the Elbe Germanic (aka Irminonic) group (along with the Alamanni and the Langobards)

My bad, I've mixed them with Thervingi. Of course, they aren't East-Gmc. Sorry, let's forget about gawi

if you know any sufficiently comprehensive dictionaries of Old Saxon/OHG, those might be used instead.

OK, I'll look for it.

[Magister Militum Flavius Aetius]

@ MMFA:

I could find little on Portus Turonum via googling. Is the location known to have been in the Galician coast?

It's like literally right where Tude is.

[Tryggvi]

That said, if you know any sufficiently comprehensive dictionaries of Old Saxon/OHG, those might be used instead.

Is that appropriate?
Old Saxon
Old High German

[Charerg]

Ok, here's the updated version. I added the modern names of several settlements to the map.



On Lupfurdum, the name probably means "ford over the Luppe" (the modern Leipzig comes from Slavic Lipsk, and has a different etymology), and was likely located close to modern Leipzig. I guess if one uses Proto-Germanic *furdus as a base, a plausible reconstruction might be Luppfurda (based on the Latin name).

@Tryggvi:

Those dictionaries look very comprehensive, many thanks! I'll take a look at those and on that resource on Proto West-Germanic you sent via pm. With several documents I downloaded from academia.edu on my "yet to read" list, it might take a while before I get through it, though!

[Tryggvi]

Charerg, by the way, for a fast search for root evolution (not for translation, of course) this site may be useful.
Just input modern English word in English field and go on.
For example, some words you mentioned earlier:
Mouth
Ford

---

PS. If there is Russian language, click on the second line in the top left corner.

[Charerg]

Again, thanks for the resources!

So, if we were to use Old Saxon for the Varinians, the name for Warnemunde would be Warnamutha and OHG for Lupfurdum would be Luppfurt, right?

Edit:
A somewhat updated map, I haven't changed Warnamuntha or Luppfurda yet, as I'd like to take a look at Proto-West-Germanic before making a final decision on which terms to use. However, Bogadium has been exchanged for Mattiacum (possibly modern Marburg), and a likely modern equivalent for Leufana has been added (Luneburg).

[Tryggvi]

Warnemunde would be Warnamutha

As I can see, mutha is Old Frisian. So Warnamuth.

Luppfurt

I guess so.

[Charerg]

As I can see, mutha is Old Frisian. So Warnamuth.

I guess so.

I think mouth could be a bit tricky, in this context. At least this dictionary gives mutha as the old english term for "mouth of a river", even though the general term for "mouth" is muth. I could be wrong, but I'd guess that in Old Saxon the usage of the word may have been similar.

[Tryggvi]

I could be wrong, but I'd guess that in Old Saxon the usage of the word may have been similar.

This may be reasonable, indeed. Also, I see in the Old Saxon dictionary form gimūthi for river mouth. May be then, Warnagimuthi?

[Charerg]

Warnagimuthi sounds good for the Old Saxon variant of the term.

On a slight update, I've shuffled several settlements around and added the (possibly) corresponding modern locations to several. A few new reconstructed place names as well, this time I used plain Proto-Germanic:



Notes:
- Modern Wurzburg appears latinized as Uburzis in the Ravenna cosmography (ca. 700), whereas in the Medieval period, the name was latinized as Herbipolis. The etymology could be Celtic, but based on the Medieval names I used the Proto-Germanic term for "herb" (*barzan or *burz) to reconstruct the name as Burzaburgz.
- Modern Lüneburg is thought to correspond with Ptolemy's Leufana. Here I used the Proto-Germanic term for "leaf" (*laubas) to reconstruct the name as Laubaburgz.

Edit:
Also, Osnabruck or "Oxenbridge" would be Uxsnabrugi in PGmc (or Uhsnabrugi). This place only became significant much later, so it's not ideal, but at least the name is easy to reconstruct.