Store Page
Europa Universalis IV
All Discussions Screenshots Artwork Broadcasts Videos Workshop News Guides Reviews

Europa Universalis IV

Store Page
Europa Universalis IV >  Workshop > Autokratao's Workshop > Fate of Islam [1.37] > Discussions
Fate of Islam [1.37]
Description Discussions8 Comments1480 Change Notes
Firesoul 5 Oct, 2018 @ 4:48am
Problematic Names in Spain
In this timeline the Arabs never took control of Spain, thus the large numbers of Arabic names and names that for other reasons make no sense should be fixed. I provide here a list with justifications:

New Name - Old Name - Reason
Mons Calpe - Gibraltar - Gibraltar derives from Arabic. The Latin name was Mons Calpe, and we probably won't get a better one
Gadés - Cádiz - Same name, but the vanilla name is heavily influenced by Arabic, where Gadés is a reasonable approximation of a direct Latin to Spanish pronunciation
Malaca - Granada - Granada comes from Arabic 'foreign quarter' or something similar. Malaca was an important city in the region which can be expected to remain so
Acci - Almería - Similar to above
Corduba - Córdoba - Similar to Gadés
Gaiena - Jaén - Above
Hispalis - Sevilla - As above, Sevilla is a really twisted version of the original which only resulted due to the Arabic writing system
Cynético - Algarve - Cynético is a Spanishisation of the Latin name of the region. Algarve comes from Arabic 'the west'
Paca - Beja - A rare case where I actually found the Visigothic name of the city. Beja is massively influenced by Arabic, without an Arab invasion it would remain Paca
Mérida - Badajoz - Badajoz was a tiny village (with different pronunciation) until the Arabs raised it to prominence. Mérida meanwhile was huge, the capital of Roman Lusitania and one of the most important cities in the empire
Helmantica - Salamanca - See Hispalis
Cartago Nuevo - Murcia - Murcia didn't even exist until it was founded by Arabs, but Carthago Novo was an important city in the area. I've Spanishised it a bit to create Cartago Nuevo
Herculea - La Mancha - A mostly uninhabited area until settled by Arabs, but there was an important Roman road running through the province, so I've given it that name. La Mancha derives from Arabic
Valeria - Cuenca - Cuenca comes from Kunka (or something), the Arabic for 'fort'. I've instead named the region after the largest Roman city in the province, and while I didn't find the Visigothic name, Valeria is late Roman Empire, which is as good as we'll get
Luquento - Alicante - Believe it or not, this is the same name, but where Alicante is heavily Arabised, Luquento is Spanishised Latin
Tiermes - Castilla la Vieja - Castille gained its name because of the huge numbers of castles constructed in the area to defend against the Arabs. Without Arab presence those castles simply won't be built, thus I use Tiermes, the Spanish name of a Roman city in the province. Castilla la Vieja is also a bad name even in vanilla, since it describes a much larger area
Anesghar - Madeira - This is the only case of me changing a Hispanic name to a non-Hispanic one, and I do it because Madeira is ruled by Berbers. I thus changed Madeira (Portuguese for 'carpenter') to Anesghar (Tamazight for 'carpenter')

Also, the Castille area should have its name changed to Tarraconensis, since having a region called Castille makes no sense in this alternate history
Last edited by Firesoul; 5 Oct, 2018 @ 4:49am
< >
Showing 1-6 of 6 comments
Zephyrum  [developer] 6 Oct, 2018 @ 11:19am 
Overall great idea and nice observations, but some of these names are visibly off for someone with some understanding of Spanish:

-Madeira is portuguese for "wood", not "carpenter" (that'd be carpinteiro);
-Mancha has no arabic origin, it simply means "stain" in spanish;
-Spanish has male and female variations for most adjectives. Carthage, as a city, would have a female adjective, therefore "Nueva", not "Nuevo". In addition, the adjective tends to come first in Spanish (so "Nueva Cartago");
-Gades does not have a stress mark in Spanish;
-Málaga would be a more accurate name for "Malaca", while less confusing due to another certain city;
-There are probably better alternatives for Gibraltar's name; would take some research though;
-Can't find any sources on the name "Cynético"? The Y isn't even used in Portuguese;
-Hispális is lacking it's stress mark.
#1
Firesoul 6 Oct, 2018 @ 12:13pm 
Originally posted by Zephyrum:
Overall great idea and nice observations, but some of these names are visibly off for someone with some understanding of Spanish:

-Madeira is portuguese for "wood", not "carpenter" (that'd be carpinteiro);
-Mancha has no arabic origin, it simply means "stain" in spanish;
-Spanish has male and female variations for most adjectives. Carthage, as a city, would have a female adjective, therefore "Nueva", not "Nuevo". In addition, the adjective tends to come first in Spanish (so "Nueva Cartago");
-Gades does not have a stress mark in Spanish;
-Málaga would be a more accurate name for "Malaca", while less confusing due to another certain city;
-There are probably better alternatives for Gibraltar's name; would take some research though;
-Can't find any sources on the name "Cynético"? The Y isn't even used in Portuguese;
-Hispális is lacking it's stress mark.
1. I read carpenter, blame my sources and bad Portuguese, ah, I see it now, that was bad reading on my part: https://www.ancestry.co.uk/name-origin?surname=madeira so Asghar instead
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Mancha#Name Mancha is a Spanish word, but it isn't the origin of the name
3. Yeah, but Latin had novo and nova. Since Latin chose novo I felt it best to keep it, since being an old name it was more likely to maintain some eccentricities. EDIT: The Latin was Carthago Nova, bad map. So Cartago Nueva, and yes, the adjective would come afterwards, because it came afterwards in Latin. The modern city is called Cartagena, it's been severely warped by the Arabic pronunciation, but the fact that the Nueva element comes after the city name is clearly visible. It's also false to state that the adjective in general comes before the noun in Spanish place names, consider the likes of Villahermosa. It's true that the particular adjective nuevo generally comes first, as a number of adjectives do, but as an old name I firmly believe that the adjective wouldn't be moved
4. It comes from Gādēs, both vowels were long. Since Spanish only has one accent per word, I felt it more likely to keep the second one. It certainly wouldn't have lost both however.
5. Ok, they're the same city, Malaca was just the Latin name
6. Anything is better than Jabal Ṭāriq, its current name https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Gibraltar#Moorish_rule_(711–1309,_1333–1462) this seems to indicate that it remained Mons Calpe under the Visigoths however
7. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algarve#History it's a Spanishised version of Cyneticum, I probably should've changed the y to i, but still
8. Again I was looking at the Latin, but sure

Y por cierto tengo conocimientos excelentes del español, mi novia es mexicana, he pasado bastante tiempo allí, incluso he traducido algunas modificaciones parcialmente al español
Last edited by Firesoul; 6 Oct, 2018 @ 1:04pm
#2
Zephyrum  [developer] 6 Oct, 2018 @ 2:36pm 
Regarding:
3: I didn't say "in general", but "tends". It's slightly more common for neolatin words to have adjectives coming before the substantive. Cartago Nova is used in Spanish sources because it's the latin original name - in a spanicized name, "Nueva Cartago" would be a better fit. Albeit I personally like Cartagena.
4: "Gádes" would be preferable since the stress is in the A, not the E, in Spanish. But I'm pretty sure not using a stress mark would be ideal, since Spanish doesn't need stress marks to have what they call "silaba tonica"
6: Mons Calpe just means "the rock", similarly to "Jabal Tariq" meaning "Rock of Tariq". If anything, the spanish name for the rock should be used.
7: After some researching, the name of the regional capital of Algarve used to be Silves, in both Portuguese and Spanish. It derives from the same word, I'd guess.
#3
Firesoul 7 Oct, 2018 @ 3:04am 
Originally posted by Zephyrum:
Regarding:
3: I didn't say "in general", but "tends". It's slightly more common for neolatin words to have adjectives coming before the substantive. Cartago Nova is used in Spanish sources because it's the latin original name - in a spanicized name, "Nueva Cartago" would be a better fit. Albeit I personally like Cartagena.
4: "Gádes" would be preferable since the stress is in the A, not the E, in Spanish. But I'm pretty sure not using a stress mark would be ideal, since Spanish doesn't need stress marks to have what they call "silaba tonica"
6: Mons Calpe just means "the rock", similarly to "Jabal Tariq" meaning "Rock of Tariq". If anything, the spanish name for the rock should be used.
7: After some researching, the name of the regional capital of Algarve used to be Silves, in both Portuguese and Spanish. It derives from the same word, I'd guess.
3. Also untrue. Very few adjectives come before the noun, the few that do are quite common ones like new, good, etc, but the vast majority come afterwards
4. Either way, it's better than what's there now
6. What??? It doesn't. It means Mount Calpe. Calpe is originally from Greek, and may have been a personal name. EDIT: Turns out it comes either from Punic 'high place' i.e. 'Mount High Place' or Greek 'cinerary urn', so 'Mount Cinerary Urn'. Gibraltar is a Spanish mispronunciation of Jabal (Gibral) Tariq (Tar), which you rightly state means Rock of Tariq. Tariq was a Muslim commander. Maintaining this name makes no sense whatsoever, especially considering that we have the actual name used by the Visigoths (and the Romans before them), who in this scenario survived
7. As long as it isn't called the Arabic word for 'the west'
Last edited by Firesoul; 7 Oct, 2018 @ 6:27am
#4
Zephyrum  [developer] 11 Oct, 2018 @ 9:48pm 
6: By "spanish name for the rock", I meant some variation of "la roca", not "gibraltar"/"roca de tariq" or something similar.
#5
Firesoul 12 Oct, 2018 @ 1:14am 
Originally posted by Zephyrum:
6: By "spanish name for the rock", I meant some variation of "la roca", not "gibraltar"/"roca de tariq" or something similar.
La Roca is fine I guess, but ultimately not as historically accurate. We have the actual name used by the Visigoths
#6
< >
Showing 1-6 of 6 comments
Per page: 1530 50