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Pegasian placenames
sorted for species designers

by Chris Wayan, 2009

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Map of Pegasia, a world-building experiment. Click a feature to go there.

Names on Pegasia Sorted by Species

This new page is for you species designers out there. Below are all the current placenames reserved for Pegasia (most of them not yet assigned to specific places), grouped by language/species, so you can decide if one cluster fits a creature you're building.

At the top are three large clusters of placenames used in the tours and maps, from species still undescribed and up for grabs. Draw them, chronicle them, claim them!

  1. The Wekshek, eastern Continent 2 and northern Continent 3
  2. The Ohallet, southeast Continent 3
  3. The Reamoa, tropical islanders scattered all over the 1-6-5 Ocean (Leading Hemisphere)

    Next come some smaller placename-clusters, so far not much used on maps, from unknown languages and peoples. All are up for grabs.

  4. The Dwan, Continent 2?
  5. The Tss
  6. The Nkore
  7. The Tsipeet
  8. The Lanthura
  9. The Dilocha
  10. The Huhe
  11. The Arra

    Third, for comparison: placenames from established and described species:

  12. The Frolcons, Continent 6
  13. The Pwokwe, Continent 6-7
  14. The Drimrol, Continent 3 and Continent 9
  15. The Busrehi, Isle of Busre and far northern Continent 4
  16. The Aviatrica Continent 8 (recently added; still sketchy)
  17. The Nevros eastern Continent 1 (recently added; still sketchy)

If none of these languages feel right, make up your own placenames and send them along with your species! I'll try to squeeze them in on the right regional map. Follow the Pronunciation Guide below for spelling conventions; DON'T make up strange letter-clusters just to give an exotic look. Break the rules if you need to, but explain what sounds you're transliterating, so I can add your explanation to the Guide. Keep the maps and tours readable! Cx'ile?qa looks nicely exotic but it has a dozen possible readings; it's just a jumble on the page. I want names that clearly transcribe a unique, fairly pronounceable word. Fzz, Psepsop, Yi'umi and Rakakaak are alien but clear; Cx'ile?qa isn't.

PRONUNCIATION GUIDE

My intent here was to create a transliteration system for Pegasian names that generates fairly readable, unambiguously pronounced spellings for a broad range of potential alien languages. I did not aim for academic rigor, absolute universality, or conformity to any existing phonetic system. I have discouraged diacritics and special characters, since they're tedious to code and iffy to display on some browsers. There are some exceptions, like ü, which seemed unavoidable.

CONSONANTS
Only ambiguous ones are listed here. B, d, f, h, k, l, m, n, p, t, v, w, y, and z are roughly as in English. Or French. In other words, these correspondences are very loose. Is that p aspirated or not? Is that f bilabial or labiodental? Answer: throw all that out the window! Aim for clarity, not precision or exoticism. A sound marked "t" merely means an unvoiced click much like human "t", not that every Pegasian species says "t" with a humanlike tongue or teeth or palate. Quite the opposite. Pegasian travelers (human or native) will meet creatures with strong accents indeed. Like the tribe that trills "rr" with their elbows. (Who? You tell me!)

VOWELS

Most simple and compound vowels are roughly as in Spanish. Or Japanese. I did say roughly.

  1. ee = always feet, never fiancee. Always an accented syllable.
  2. oo = always boot, never foot or cooperate. Always an accented syllable.
  3. ü (With luck, your browser shows that as a "u" with an umlaut--two dots over it) = as in French, German, or Chinese. Or just say eeeeee, but then shift your lips into a tube as if saying oooo while not moving your tongue into the ooooo position. It's quite distinctive once you've got it.
  4. y = avoid treating this hard-working consonant as a decorative vowel; use i, ee, ü where appropriate

ACCENT

Accent is most often on the penultimate syllable: LISpo, aGHUri. But doubled vowels like aa or oo, and diphthongs like ai, ao, eo, iu, mark accented syllables. So do doubled consanants after a vowel, like emm, att, orr. Don't use silent letters.

Names without apparent vowels still follow the rules. Just treat continuing sounds like dh, f, gh, h, hh, l, m, n, r, s, sh, th, v, z and zh as vowels, and hard stops like b, d, g, k, p, and t as consonants. Luckily, none of these "vowel-less" languages heavily use glottal stops, or make a (consistent) distinction between k and deeper gutteral stops (as in Arabic q), so we don't face unreadable though quite pronounceable words like tvqgh or 'hhqdh (I hope you're not disappointed). When a vowellike letter is doubled, it often marks an accented syllable, but some are doubled for simple readability, to help you find the pseudovowel, and merely indicate length, not a strong emphasis.

TONES

Some of Pegasia's languages may be highly tonal, but tones are not marked (mostly for my own sanity). Length matters too, in some tongues; ii, aa, uu indicate longer vowels, but for elongated e and o (which, if spelled ee and oo, English speakers will probably pronounce like feet and pool) I've instead doubled the following consonant, just as I did to indicate stressed syllables: onn or ell is ambiguous, but will have you saying the right vowel and at least emphasizing the right syllable somehow. You're a tourist; they'll probably cut you some slack.

Map of Pegasia, an Earthlike moon. Click a feature to go there.
TOUR PEGASIA! Survival tips first, then click on a region (just numbered for now): Continent 1 - 165 Is. - Continent 2 - Continent 3 - Rift-Junction and Curl 9 Is. - 1-4 Is. - Continent 4 - Continent 5 - Curl 5 Is. - Continent 6 - Continent 7 - Continent 8 - 89 Is. - Continent 9

The gazetteer will have a full index of native placenames, with descriptions--once the contests's over and we have natives to name them.



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