[Development] City Name Suggestions

However you want to spell city names in English is up to you!

But there's your mistake: it's not in English. It & other non-English names are in a westernized version (the exact transliterations used solely due to the limitations of the game's display) of the local language. The only English named cities are those settled/owned by English speaking civs or those where the native spelling is the same as in English (like some German names).
 
It's as though Leoreth has seen the two city's names written (somewhere) as Toukyou and Kyoutou and prefers this spelling. True? It's his game and he can spell the cities as he wants.

I just think it's a less correct transliteration (is that the correct term) than the typical English spelling.
 
The point is that "Toukyou" is not English spelling, it is Japanese spelling.

Its an English written rendition of a Japanese spoken word. It's imperfect. It's English speakers and writers trying to write a word that when pronounced sounds as close to the Japanese as possible.

In my opinion the words written in English as Kyoto and Tokyo are closer to the correct Japanese pronunciation. Also I have never seen those two cities written the way they are in game in real life. Ever. And I have very close personal links to Japan. Which is possibly why this annoys me so much! Ask a resident of Kyoto of (any nationality) "how do you spell your city in English"? They will invariably answer "Kyoto".

Is English your first language DarkLunaPhantom? What about you Leoreth?
 
I think part of the disconnect here is that transliteration and translation are not the same thing. Yes, Kyoto is the usual spelling in English. That is a translation. However, a transliteration represents the sound in the native language (Japanese in this case) in the available characters. That will be a matter of opinion to some degree, but there are also conventions. It seems like the convention that Leoreth is using represents the Japanese vowel sound in Kyoto as ou rather than o. As a native English speaker, I think that I would pronounce both spellings differently from the correct vowel, and which is closer would depend on which English accent you have, so neither is perfect. If the transliteration that Leoreth is using puts ou for that sound, then that is what should be there.
 
Mandarin Chinese moved from Wade-Giles to Pinyin - Peking to Beijing. The country passed a law stating the correct spelling of the city in English.

So we can't write intonations on the letters as in Hepburn romanization. Use the same logic for Portuguese. Take Sao Paulo - would you (Leoreth) write it as Saomn Paulo? No. You just write the letter without the intonation mark. Sao.
 
It's as though Leoreth has seen the two city's names written (somewhere) as Toukyou and Kyoutou and prefers this spelling. True? It's his game and he can spell the cities as he wants.

I just think it's a less correct transliteration (is that the correct term) than the typical English spelling.
Dude. You don't even know what the word transliteration means. You're in no place to make condescending assumptions about my motivations, especially since I spelled out my motivations in an earlier post. Maybe you should start reading my posts, and then continue by reading about the topic you are talking about. I was clearly being too charitable to your understanding of both Japanese in particular and languages in general to you before.

Also, I am here in this thread, and have directly replied to you before. There is no reason to talk about me in third person. Don't you know that's rude?
 
Dude. You don't even know what the word transliteration means. You're in no place to make condescending assumptions about my motivations, especially since I spelled out my motivations in an earlier post. Maybe you should start reading my posts, and then continue by reading about the topic you are talking about. I was clearly being too charitable to your understanding of both Japanese in particular and languages in general to you before.

Also, I am here in this thread, and have directly replied to you before. There is no reason to talk about me in third person. Don't you know that's rude?

Sorry Leoreth, sincerely. I'm not well educated and I have a lot of trouble expressing myself appropriately. I'll refrain from commenting further.

You do an enormous amount of work for our enjoyment, thank you. DoC is a brilliant game.
 
Its an English written rendition of a Japanese spoken word.

It's English speakers and writers trying to write a word that when pronounced sounds as close to the Japanese as possible.

In my opinion the words written in English as Kyoto and Tokyo are closer to the correct Japanese pronunciation.

"how do you spell your city in English"?

Is English your first language DarkLunaPhantom? What about you Leoreth?

You are again missing the point. English is irrelevant. Forget about English. "Toukyou" is not supposed to be about English. If you cannot think or write about this topic without mentioning the word "English", you are missing the point, by a lot.
 
Instead of thinking "How is XXX best written in English", you should be thinking "How is the name XXX best represented using the Latin alphabet (possibly plus diacritics)"? That's what transliteration, at least in this context, really is.
 
I appreciate everyone's attempts at education, but I think the thread has been derailed enough.
 
You are again missing the point. English is irrelevant. Forget about English. "Toukyou" is not supposed to be about English. If you cannot think or write about this topic without mentioning the word "English", you are missing the point, by a lot.
I think the problem here is transliteration, what is needed is a phonetic equivilent to a japanease name that can be written in a form that an english speaking person using a latin script that can copy or aproxomate the japanease pronunciation. Its not a matter of what langage its about, its about approximating the pronunciation in a way that an english speaking user who reads each symbol as an individual sound, as opposed to logographic systems where symbols represent entire words or units of meaning, like in Japanese.

Its a matter of traslating sound more than meaning. Because the two writing systems are fundamentally diffrent in how they convay meaning and pronunciation.

Edit:sorry I was typing this before you posted. I didnt see it before I posted
 

Sorry for answer in late to this post, but i read it just today.

City names for Italy are not correct.

First: it is italian or latin?
Roma is italian, but Pisae is latin. Assisium is latin. Milano is italian.
There are differences of languages.

There are historical differences: in roman time there was no Venetia, and nowadays there is no Aquileia.
 
Digging up my old account to try to contribute, here's my attempt with cities in mainland France:
Spoiler France :

RFC DoC France Map.png



Here's h0spitall3rz's for comparison and for a screenshot of the actual map.
My main point of difference would be that I feel Strasbourg ought to be on the west side of the Rhine, given how the current border follows the river as a natural barrier. This also allows eastern France to be less stretched compared to the rest.

-Colors correspond to contemporary regions, surface areas are preserved.
-ALLCAPS names are good candidates for canon city placements, though probably not all of them at once.
-Tiles with two names correspond to a situation where the first name is closer to the actual approximated geography, while the one in parentheses is less accurate but represents a bigger city.
-The only change done to the terrain is to move the Loire river north of the Châteauroux tile, for lesser distortion of the local region.

EDIT: Moved the southern regions a bit (darker tiles) for a more accurate Grenoble:
Spoiler France :

RFC DoC France Map2.png

 
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Um, do I need to access a file on the map branch to make suggestions? Or something like the above post by Dracosolon suffice?
 
So, these are my suggestions for Mexico's cities names. I was based on the division of states that a user (forgot their name) made for the thread of map suggestions, and then I chose the cities that I considered more relevant according to the geography of the map. Obviously this can be subject to tweaks, so if anybody want to make a change/opinion, go on it. (BTW, I'm glad you can't make a passage through the seas in the Oaxaca region with the new map anymore, that was really unrealistic)
Civ4ScreenShot0001.JPG
Civ4ScreenShot0002.JPG
Civ4ScreenShot0003.JPG
Civ4ScreenShot0004.JPG
 
This is not necessarily a final proposal and certainly not free from inconsistencies, but how about Viking city names in Old Norse (Icelandic saga style), medieval Swedish, etc?
Spoiler Norse city names :
ONP.jpg

And a somewhat elaborate Vinland.
Spoiler Vinland :
Vinland.jpg
 
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