On Wed, 25 Mar 2020 at 09:27, Frederik Ramm <[email protected]> wrote:
> > * niche constructed languages (say, FredLang which has 2 words I > invented just now) > Nope. I'm tempted because you could use those "words" as a binary code that maps to words in English. Make one of those words the space character and the other the tab character and all anyone would see is white space. Somebody wrote a module for the programming language Perl that lets you write entire programs using just those two characters, so the concept works. And would be amusing. But not very sensible. * popular constructed languages (Klingon, Elvish) - note place names in > these languages will often be algorithmically derived from the English > or local name > Nope. Definitely not. Not until Klingons pay us a visit. Or we have a large community where everyone speaks Klingon as a first language. * "serious" constructed languages (Esperanto) > Maybe. But it's just going to be a variant spelling of the real name, at most. Unless the place name has a meaning or can be decomposed into words with meanings, that can be translated. So nope, until there is a large community of people who speak Esperanto as a first language. * languages that once existed but are not natively spoken any more (Roman) > Latin is spoken in the Holy See. But not as a first language. Still nope. * languages that are natively spoken but their speakers do not have > their own name for the entity in question (instead they use the same > name the locals use, possibly transcribed into a different alphabet) > That's where it gets tricky. If the symbols are sufficiently different, or the same symbols are used but have different meanings, then yes. Ideographic languages such as Japanese are very different. Cyrillic, used in some Former Soviet Union countries, uses many of the same symbols as the Latin alphabet but gives some of them different sounds, as well as having a few extra symbols. Those two should definitely be allowed, even if they give words pronounced identically to the real name. I'm sure Russians would want to see the names of towns in Russia rendered in Cyrillic, but I'd find it useful to see the name in English whether pronounced the same or differently. What if the difference is real but slight? Rome/Roma? Again, I'd say yes. -- Paul
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