There's a title you probably never expected to see. But in fact the two go quite well together, due to my decision to focus for a time on the Elefdar language. One of the drivers behind that decision, was the fact that I had several (not all) Elefdar characters and places with names that I had borrowed from JRR Tolkien's Sindarin and Quenya Elvish languages. Quite simply, I knew that the names I had chosen could only be temporary place-holders until such time as I developed a basic Elefdar language of my own. Once that was done, I would be able to rename all my Elefdar names, taking the original intended meanings of those names and translating them into the new tongue.
Well, that time is fast approaching. I have the basic syntax worked out, not that it was particularly difficult. I also have a set of pronunciation rules and phonological constraints (i.e. rules stating which types of sounds will never be found together). And finally, I am well into the grammar of the language. I've got verb conjugation rules for regular and some irregular verbs, I've got noun declensions for several cases, in both singular and plural forms. I've got grammatical rules for the use of pronouns, definite articles, particles and conjunctions. And I'm slowly working my way through the creation of a lexicon with about 2,000 words.
The first words I'm focusing on for the lexicon, are those which will be required to re-do the names that I've "borrowed" thus far. For example, Meldarion's name will be changing. As will the name of the city Fanyalone. And there are a few others. Some of the names will change a lot, some only a little bit. I probably won't go back through my previous posts to correct those names, but I will post a list here of all the names that are changing, so there's one central "translation list" of old to new names.
As far as how this relates to change management, well, clearly there is a change coming. Fortunately for me, none of my writings are "in production" at this time - everything I've written, whether posted here or not, is still in my dev/test environment, so I can pretty much change whatever I want, when I want, as long as I have good backups and keep a few prior versions for reference.
Anyway, I just thought I'd give y'all a heads-up that the change is coming.
Meldarion became Eldamir.
ReplyDeleteFanyalone became Fanyamar.