I am wondering what will be city list for Teutons. Will it go literally for cities of Teutonic Order (problematic, as it'd basically overlap with north - eastern Poland) or will it be "basically HRE but listen, we needed some actually cool sounding name for medieval German culture"
Humankind - Teutons discussion thread
- Thread starter Eagle Pursuit
- Start date
Boris Gudenuf
Deity
Some years ago I had occasion to refer to a Gazateer of Baltic States place names. Virtually every city in Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia has 3 - 4 different spellings/names: one native in the Baltic spelling/language, one Russian, one German from the Teutonic Knights, and, especially the further north you go - one in Swedish.
That means most of the cities in the region could appear on Teutonic, Swedish, Russian or Polish (because I doubt that we'll get Lithuania, Latvia or Estonia in the game any time soon, even though Lithuania was a major eastern European power in the late medieval period - briefly) City Lists at the same time without obvious 'overlap'!
mitsho
Deity
My guess: It will be cities of the Holy Roman Empire of German Nation with maybe Königsberg thrown in as as a throw away nod.
Boris Gudenuf
Deity
Königsberg is a bad example, because it has been Prussian since the Prussians were tribes being chased through the woods by the Teutonic Knights (Original name, something like Kenigsbarg in Old Prussian).
BUT it's a good example of how many names even a city that has been Prussian, Teutonic Knight, Duchy of Prussia, Kingdom of Brandenburg/Prussia, German Empire, Weimar Republic, - always 'German', in other words, is or can be also known as:
Karaliaucius - Lithuanian
Krolewiec - Polish
Korolevets - Russian
Not even mentioning its modern name: Kaliningrad, after the Red Army effectively emptied the city of the German inhabitants and made it "Russian".
...But the Old Prussians were Balts, not Germans.
Boris Gudenuf
Deity
Mea Culpa: you are absolutely right, and 'Kenigsbarg', the oldest name for the settlement is, technically, Pre-German. It is ironic that the Teutonic Knights not only conquered the territory, they so completely absorbed it that 'Prussian' since the 17th century has become identified with the Most German of the Germans and their non-German origins forgotten. Although, when I was in Germany back in Pre-Unification Days, the western Germans were pretty certain that the Berliners, the "last Prussians" after the Red Army De-Germanized most of the original Prussia in 1945, were Not Like Us and generally 'strange'. And 'Prussisch deutch' was definitely looked upon as some sort of weird dialect everywhere else in (western) Germany . . .
