jack kincaid

Hi everyone,

I'm going to need help from a finnish speaker in an unusual way here Let me explain...

I'm currently working on the project of a fantasy book (not really fantasy but that's not the point), in which several imaginary nations will be involved. I didn't want the names of characters and places to come out of nowhere or to sound similar regardless of the nation, but I was too lazy to create my own systems of phonotactics & phonemes, so I decided to pick some already existing systems and just build my names from them. One of the systems I picked was the finnish system.
The trouble with my technique is that, since I have only a basic knowledge of the way the language works (I gathered the knowledge from the web for this project), I've probably missed or misunderstood some of the rules that finnish uses to build words... That's why I would really appreciate your help in "checking" the terms I created...

The land is called Harmaa (I meant "land of the Har") and the people Harmaasta (I meant the elative case)

Now, the names (at last ). I included IPA phonetic transcriptions in case my finnish orthography is not that great (which is certainly the case )

What I basically need to know is :
- Would it be difficult for a finnish speaker to pronounce some of those names, or would they sound foreign ? If so, what should I change ?
- Do some of them actually mean something ? (I wouldn't want to baptize someone "idiot" without meaning to... )

Ainea - /ɑineʔɑ/
Hynnäp - /hynːæp/
Kjaan - /kjɑːn/
Lengöt - /leŋøt/
Lymeen - /lymeːn/
Moon - /moːn/
Norea - /noreʔɑ/
Seehsar - /seːhsɑr/
Sevirreys - /seʋirːeys/
Suliihkar - /suliːhkɑr/
Tuonahtar - /tuonɑhtɑr/
Tylinnöt - /tylinːøt/
Välköt - /ʋælkøt/
Lyrälle - /lyrælːe/
Seeskaupu - /seːskɑupu/

Here is what I came up with for now... Thanks for your help and for having taken the time to read me

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Hevosnaama

Hi,
this sounds like an interesting idea...keep up the good work.

Then the words you have chosen. I'm not sure what you mean by sounding wierd, but as long as you maintain vowel harmony (like you have done) they are easy to pronounce for a Finnish person.

The words themselves don't have any real life meanings and they sound more like they are from The Lord of the Rings than from Finnish mythology (this is just my opinion). If i was doing something similar, I'd try to get some influences from Kalevala and then corporate those with existing Finnish words that actually have some meaning...take Joukahainen or Louhi, for example (don't use those since they are from Kalevala).

These ones sound best for me if I have to pick my favourites: Ainea, Norea, Tuonahtar, Välköt and maybe Lyrälle.

The one actual problem you have is the name of the land you have chosen. It is true that you could say "the land of Har" = "Harmaa" but harmaa actually means the colour grey, so it sounds a bit odd.

Harmaasta would be the elative, but what do you need it for if you are not going to write any real sentences in finnish?

jack kincaid

Hi,

Excuse me for the delay, I've been on holiday and I forgot to check for answers afterwards... Anyway, thanks a lot for your answer, you will (at last) get rep from me

Using the kalevala is an interesting idea, that I should have had myself. I will try to add this influence on the next names, and maybe update some of those. Thanks for the hint.

About the har problem, I hadn't done it on purpose but it's actually going to fit well in the story Nice coincidence. It might even look as if I were smart

I intended to use "sta" to design the people from the country, like finnish uses "lainen" if I recall correctly. However, this wouldn't have sounded right in the french text, I will stick with something more classical.

Again, thanks for your time

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