(no subject)

[flemmings]

Someone cruelly got my hopes up by declaring that the Etruscan god of wine was called Flufluns. Sadly, the rest of the internet seems to think it's Fufluns, which is still pretty cool. "Little godling Fufluns running through the vineyards, picking up the wine jars and bopping them on his head." A further list of Etruscan gods'n'heroes makes fascinating reading. Not Indo-European no, not by a long shot. Achvizr, Achuvesr, Achuvizr, Achviztr, 'or something that sounds like that.'

"Thetlvmth-- Unknown deity of the Piacenza Liver, which is not a picture bilingual." Fantasy writers never give us people with names like Thetlvmth, Culsans, Malavisch, Tuntle, Veiove, or Mlacuch. I wonder why not?

Oh, and did you know that the word catamite is Ganymede run through the Babelfish of Etruscan? Me neither. The Etruscan version is Catmite, which is something else these days, usually involving mineral oil and cotton balls.

Comments

[petronia.livejournal.com]

I would totally gack some of those! You are not supposed to put fantasy names ppl really would have trouble pronouncing in your books, apparently, as this discourages auditive readers (though maybe not visual ones). So I've heard.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Mmhmm. Still there's a difference between have trouble pronouncing and 'think they have trouble pronouncing', as witness those who think Japanese or Hindi names are difficult. Fantasy names with randomly inserted apostrophes put me off something terrible until I realized they had no phonic function, they were there, manga aesthetics-ly, only because they looked purty.

Culsans and Tuntle however are fine even in English, and even obey the fantasy rule that Liquids Are Good.

[doire]

Mm, words.