Latin names of cities
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Users of Neo-Latin have taken the Latin language to places the Romans never went; hence a need arose to make Latin names of cities that did not exist when Latin was a living language.
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Strategies for constructing Latin names
The first places that needed Latin names were encountered by Bible translators, who had a need to figure out what to call the many place names in the Bible in Latin. They either reworked the place names into Latin or Greek shapes; in one version, Yerushalem (tentative reconstruction of a more ancient Hebrew version of the name) becomes Hierosolyma, doubtless influenced by Greek ιερος (hieros), "holy". Or, they adopted them directly, often treating the new place names as indeclinable nouns; here Yerushalem is brought over as Ierusalem, with the Latin I being prononuced as an English Y sound and the /sh/ being transliterated to the closest Latin sound, /s/. [1] (http://www.cwru.edu/univlib/preserve/Etana/SMITH.JERUv1/SMITH.JERUv1.250.273.pdf)
Similar strategies are used with United States and North America and other place names that Latin writers needed to give Latin names to. A number of methods are used:
- A classical ending such as -um or -a is added or substituted on the end of the source word. Hence Baltimorum for "Baltimore," Albania for "Albany."
- The words already fit into Latin declensions, as do Indianapolis, Cincinnati, and Atlanta.
- Calques are resorted to if the New World name is based on an Old World name; the various Parises in the United States are likely to become Lutetia, and Novum Eboracum or Neo-Eboracum represents New York, because Eboracum is the city of York in England.
- The words are respelled to eliminate non-Latin sounds; hence Washington becomes Vasingtonium.
- The words are adjusted to fit Latin declensions; Kansas appears as either Cansas, Cansatis or Cansa, Cansae; Chicago, Ohio, and Idaho become consonant stems, with genitives Chicagonis, Ohionis, Idahonis, &c.
- The words are re-interpreted to fit Latin declensions; Illinois is treated as a third-declension noun.
- The words are treated as indeclinable, like some Biblical names; Connecticut is sometimes treated this way.
In many cases, there is no consensus as to how to treat any given names, and variants exist. If a university or an episcopal see is in a town, the odds increase that there is a standard form hallowed by usage. Note that names of cities are usually feminine in gender in Latin, despite ending in -us. This rule is not always strictly observed in the New World
- There are latin forms of Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast, and other Oceanian-South Pacific communities as well.
- One example is London, Ontario which can be translateable to Londinium in Latin, while the rest of the other non-Latin languages like Greek and French for other Londons that are not London, England is spelt "London" (from English).
Here are the names that are listed in Latin and its modern meaning on the right for the world, except for Europe, Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, and Kurdistan.
- This list includes Azerbaijan, Kurdistan southeast of Arbil, Abkhazia, Chechnya, Tatarstan, Dagestan, Malta and Pantelleria, and the whole of Kazakhstan, and Russia east of the ural mountains.
Node on word endings
Latin being an inflected language, names in a Latin context may have different word-endings to those shown here, which are given in the nominative case. For instance Roma (Rome) may appear as Romae meaning "at Rome" (locative), "of Rome" (genitive) or "for Rome" (dative), as Romam meaning "to Rome" (accusative), or indeed as Romā with a long a, probably not indicated in the orthography, meaning "from Rome" (ablative). Similarly names ending in -um or -us may occur with -i or -o, and names ending in -us may occur with -um. The words urbs and civitas may occur as urbis, urbi, or urbe, and civitatis, civitati or civitate.
List of names
- 1 - Latinized form of the Greek-derived name.
- 2 - Latinized form of a Hebrew derived name
- 3 - Latinized form of an Amerindian languages-derived name.
- 4 - only polis is a Greek derived name.
See also
- List of Roman place names in Britain
- List of British places with Latin names
- Latin names of European cities
- Latin names of European rivers
- Latin names of geographical features
- Latin names of islands
- Latin names of lakes
- Latin names of mountains
- Latin names of regions
- Latin names of rivers
- Roman place names