Talk:El Cabo, DS

Hello Luciano - I don't know if you'll have seen my comment on histor's Ciudad Inca page, but I thought I'd just repeat the comment about having a real world name (e.g. Inca or Inglés) for a place in OGF. What do you think? Perhaps, given that I'm not sure what the Castellanese is for Ingerland (Ingerlandia?, Ingerterra?), would something like 'Cabo Ingerlés' work instead? --Udilugbuldigu (talk) 14:27, 20 April 2016 (CEST)

I've long known this issue would arise. Well... this is definitely a "retcon" and I haven't definitively settled on it, but here is my current rationalization of the name. As you may know, "ingle" in Spanish means "crotch" or "notch." This is just linguistic coincidence, but it's handy for my current thinking. The Castellanese word that I have been using to mean "inglés" is "inguerés" (and the country is called "Inguerterra"). The Altezorian (Albalongan) name for the islands to the south of the mainland was Enli. The Castellanese explorers, already conceptualizing the region as a kind of "notch" in the White Sea, heard "ingle" and started calling it Cabo Ingle. When the Ingerish explorers followed, they said, "oh, how convenient, they're already using something that sounds almost like our name" and they called it, in Ingerish, "Cape Ingerish," partly as an effort to assert their ownership. Over time, these competing names interacted and caused the evolution of the Castellanese name from Cabo Ingle to Cabo Inglés, a kind of fusion of the original Altazorian Enli and the Ingerish. All of it is a kind of "just so" story - but all etymology is, post facto. What do you think - will it fly?--Happy mapping - Luciano (talk) 15:08, 20 April 2016 (CEST)

It may fly, but why does it fly with an 'é' and not an 'e'? --Udilugbuldigu (talk) 16:00, 20 April 2016 (CEST)

I suppose it is what you would call "stress shift in context of interlinguistic contact" - the syllable final "és" in "Cabo ingerés" (calque of Cape Ingerish) influenced the stress placement and final sound in the native "Cabo Ingle" leading to a stress-shift and added phoneme on the final syllable. The alternative would be Cabo Ingle, with no influence - the stress shift and added "s" are about equally probable in terms of diachonic linguistics.--Happy mapping - Luciano (talk) 16:19, 20 April 2016 (CEST)

You've convinced me - all the way back to Enli, it flies high. And I even see the ongoing evolution of 'diachronic linguistics' ;) --Udilugbuldigu (talk) 16:42, 20 April 2016 (CEST)