EBII Latin names

[Cevlakohn]

Hey, sorry if this has been asked before, but.. Well, I was just wondering whether Europa Barbarorum II will follow the same conventions as its predecessor when it comes to transcribing Latin names. Because, it kind of bothers me that EB1 uses "v" to transcribe vocalic /u/. Because I've never seen that done anywhere. In fact, if I recall correctly (though I don't have the book with me atm), the Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World's Ancient Languages' chapter on Latin goes against convention in the *other* direction and uses "u" for the liquid /w/ as well as the vowel. The EB1 style seems to be like an overzealous hypercorrection done on the justification that the Latins themselves had no letter "u", so to speak.. That latter emerged later as a typological variant of "v" along the lines of s <-> ſ. But to me that argument sounds a bit silly, because one could use the same argument to say that the Greek names should be written in the Greek alphabet, or that the names shouldn't use the modern disctinction and use of majuscule vs. minuscule. It is the almost universal convention when writing Latin to, in lower case, use "v" for liquids and "u" in vowels.

However, it's far from a huge deal.. It's just a little thing that bothers me. And if anybody has any arguments in support of writing things like "Qvintvs", then I'll listen to them.

[anubis88]

Gaivs Jvlivs Casear Octavianvs Avgvstvs... What could be better? I must say i love the use of the latter V instead of the latter u... It's historically accurate, and an added + for EB. I really don't understand why it bothers you... if you can read it... Also i don't understand about the greek latters thing? I believe less then 10 % of EB players can read Greek (less the 1% perhaps), and that's nothing like changing a simple latter to the way it should be.

[Arjos]

Having the greek names written with their alphabet would be awesome ^^

[Cevlakohn]

That's not really an argument -for- as it is a reiteration -of- your thesis. *Why* is that "they way it should be"? The way it "should" be, for 280 BC, is completely lacking in spaces between words, and probably written in all capital letters. I'm looking at The World's Writing Systems now, and according to it, "The earliest known handwritten Latin document can be traced to the first century B.C.E. Old Roman Cursive dates from some time before that and lasts into the third century C.E.". The majuscule vs minuscule distinction comes even latter than the advent of handwritten Latin.

So if you want how it "should" be, what you have (I think) is:

CAIVS·IVLIVS·KAESAR·OCTAVIANVS·AVQVSTVS

Also, your arguing in favor of using "v" throughout, but employing both "J" and "i" in your example seems to me like blatant hypocrisy. Maybe that was just an oversight, though.

[athanaric]

Having the greek names written with their alphabet would be awesome ^^

Yeah and the Pahlavi names in Avestan and Cuneiform...

[Arthur, king of the Britons]

IIRC the EB team did use the greek alphabet (can't remember if it was for names or the quotes though) but it caused some crashes or something.

[anubis88]

Also, your arguing in favor of using "v" throughout, but employing both "J" and "i" in your example seems to me like blatant hypocrisy. Maybe that was just an oversight, though.

Yeah, that was my bad. I think your missing the point, it's made in minuscule and with capital latters and with spaces to make it easier to understand. The latin alphabet is there to add a flavour to the game. The game is just using the Latin alphabet, nothing alse. I really don't gettit why it bothers you

[Cevlakohn]

Yeah, that was my bad. I think your missing the point, it's made in minuscule and with capital latters and with spaces to make it easier to understand. The latin alphabet is there to add a flavour to the game. The game is just using the Latin alphabet, nothing alse. I really don't gettit why it bothers you

Because the minuscule-majuscule distinction, and the practice of using spaces to separate words, is just as much part of our modern "alphabet" as are the letters k, u, and w. You can't claim that the game is "just using the Latin alphabet, nothing else" if it employs those. It's picking and choosing at random what Ancient elements and what Modern elements to use.

Also, an important issue here is that it is misleading to say "the Romans didn't have the letter 'u'". We say that because their capital, lapidary form of the letter resembles, and is the source of, our capital letter Vee. A more accurate way to say it would be that they "didn't have a distinction between the letter 'u' for vowels and 'v' for consonants". Their "lowercase", handwritten version of the letter looked in fact very much like our lowercase u.

EDIT: My point there being that it would be just as "accurate" to write "Uergilius" instead of "Vergilivs". In fact, it has three advantages: 1) it is an attested way to transcribe Latin (cf my earlier post), 2) it more accurately represents the pronunciation of the sounds, especially to those who grew up on Church Latin, and 3) it, in my opinion, looks nicer.

[Arjos]

"Uergilius" instead of "Vergilivs

I believe that's the case for celtic names...

[Foot]

We only use the "v" for character names and building titles. When the latin words appear in descriptions we use the more forgiving "u". This was a choice we made, and this distinction will appear also in EBII.

Foot

[plutoboyz]

Having the greek names written with their alphabet would be awesome ^^

Yeah and the Pahlavi names in Avestan and Cuneiform...

And for a faction that don't have writing system?

[Andy1984]

Wasn't it possible to switch fonts in EBII? I remember a preview on Twitter about fonts that enabled the team to use different lettertypes. Maybe the team decides to include Greek names and terms this way?

just an idea,

Andy

[Fluvius Camillus]

Wasn't it possible to switch fonts in EBII? I remember a preview on Twitter about fonts that enabled the team to use different lettertypes. Maybe the team decides to include Greek names and terms this way?

just an idea,

Andy

That was something else, that was about the EB team using other fonts for ingame text. Like Unit descriptions and such.

~Flvvivs

[Andy1984]

That was something else, that was about the EB team using other fonts for ingame text. Like Unit descriptions and such.

~Flvvivs

I see. Thanks for clearing up.

[Atilius]

Because, it kind of bothers me that EB1 uses "v" to transcribe vocalic /u/. Because I've never seen that done anywhere.

We're simply imitating the way these names were inscribed. For reasons of legibility and length we use spaces but don't capitalize. Below is an image from the Fasti Triumphales, which record Roman triumphs from Romulus in 752 BC to L. Cornelius Balbus in 19 BC. I'll send you a shiny penny if you can find a "U" on it.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

The first legible name is C. Sextius Calvin[us], with his filiation, C. F C. N (son of Caius, grandson of Caius), preceeding his cognomen. the second is L. Aurelius Orestes, and the third is Q. Caecilius Metellus.

EDIT: I just happened to notice an interesting error in the fourth name here - it's Q. Fabius Aemilianus (written Aemiliani). He was the nephew of P. Scipio Aemilianus, conqueror of Carthage, and the grandson of L. Aemilius Paullus, the victor at Pydna. The filiation begins in the right place, with a Q between "Fabius" and "Aemiliani", but the inscriber started the doing "Aemiliani" before he realized he'd left out the remaining "F Q.N" of the filiation, so he just tacks it on after the cognomen. Oops.

CAIVS·IVLIVS·KAESAR·OCTAVIANVS·AVQVSTVS

CAIVS·IVLIVS·CAESAR·OCTAVIANVS·AVGVSTVS

[Tellos Athenaios]

@Andy: you are correct that to use Greek characters requires the use of a different font than the stock M2 ones.
@Atilius: wasn't the G invented only after the EB timeframe? So AVGVSTVS really should be AVCVSTVS ?

The matter of using non-Latin alphabets has been brought up before with EB 1 (when it was not actually possible to use them reliably) and at the time was decided against because people felt that too few people would be able to appreciate it.

[Atilius]

@Atilius: wasn't the G invented only after the EB timeframe? So AVGVSTVS really should be AVCVSTVS ?

No, the G first appears in the late 3rd C BC. You can see lots of them on the picture of the Fasti, which dates to the late 1st C BC.

[MisterFred]

EDIT: I just happened to notice an interesting error in the fourth name here - it's Q. Fabius Aemilianus (written Aemiliani). He was the nephew of P. Scipio Aemilianus, conqueror of Carthage, and the grandson of L. Aemilius Paullus, the victor at Pydna. The filiation begins in the right place, with a Q between "Fabius" and "Aemiliani", but the inscriber started the doing "Aemiliani" before he realized he'd left out the remaining "F Q.N" of the filiation, so he just tacks it on after the cognomen. Oops.

LOL! Thanks for pointing that out. It made me laugh just imagining the string of profanity the inscriber must have let out when he realized his mistake. Way to piss off one of the most powerful families in Rome (and their friends)...

[Apázlinemjó]

LOL! Thanks for pointing that out. It made me laugh just imagining the string of profanity the inscriber must have let out when he realized his mistake. Way to piss off one of the most powerful families in Rome (and their friends)...

It's funny when you read it and annoying when you try to translate the text. At our Uni, the leading Rome specialized professor has begun a project to translate the "Expositio totius mundi et gentium" text to Hungarian last year. Few of my ancient times spec'd classmates and I joined the project, because it sounded very interesting as it was never translated to Hungarian yet. What I can say about this it's a hell of a text full with latin grammatical errors, inaccurate exaggerations and mythical places (probably because the writer's original mothertongue was Greek, not Latin and he wasn't really educated).

Though I have to admit, my retarded history fanatic spirit likes this kind of challenges.

[Skullheadhq]

I thought it was conventional that the U was used instead of the V when writing Latin, this to avoid confusion and because we're not chiseling Latin on marble anymore.