Local naming

A topic by Ordoalea Publishing created Jul 27, 2020 Views: 242 Replies: 3

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Good day everyone. I wanted to know your opinion on using localised names with or without IPA pronounciation guides for the games?

As this is a Folklore Jam, I think that language is important to the whole stich of the Jam.

So not sure how to approach this.

W.H. ArthurHostSubmitted3 years ago(+1)

As much as I like the idea of IPA pronunciation guides, I don't know how to read them.

With Chinese names, people seem to be used to having bad anglicised pronunciations that butcher the tones. *shrug*

One thing that I've been doing with some of my games is to offer the meaning of the name instead of the pronunciation.

Chinese names using birds, plants and virtues are quite common. They are even more common in folklore and period fiction.

In a game that I am currently writing about Hulijings, I just instruct players to pick a name based on one of those things.

Ordoalea Publishing3 years ago(+1)

Hmm as names are important in the aspect that I'm doing for not sure how to call the game yet... Fenjer? Dveri?

But I'm thinking of adding local ideas of folklore to be in the actual language used. To get over a few "overlaps"

Sungrass PressSubmitted3 years ago (1 edit) (+2)

Personally, I unapologetically went for local names. (In fact, I'm now remembering a few places where I could've gone for it even harder.) People are going to mispronounce it either way, so I figure I might as well make it look right for me.

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Folklore Jam 2020

Local naming