> Well, the British didn't call it anything before the Romans
> arrived, because it didn't exist before the Romans arrived.
Segontium (near Caernarfon) sounds like a Latinized Welsh name for a fortress on the green field, named after the nearby river Seiont (sp?). I'd expect Eburacum to be named after some named geographc feature or after a person.
> Nova Sogsket to Nochet is improbable because it would involve
> contracting two words into one, which doesn't happen too often
This is a German speaking. There are practically no two word place names in Germany, even provinces tossed together like Schleswig-Holstein get a hyphen. Just because English doesn't draw together place names doesn't mean other languages won't. There is a city Neumuenster named after the city of Muenster, with "New" integrated in the name rather than as separate word.
> Usually, when a city has a two word name one word disappears
> and the other dominates.
Not necessarily. Pen Hill became Pendle before renamed Pendle Hill.
> We'd have to accept that the dialect spoken in the region of Nova
> Sogsket was a slow, lazy drawl like Deep Southern English, which
> tends to blur words together, or that Nova Sogsket was considered
> too much trouble to keep distinct.
Only if you assume that people speak English. Looking at Sartarite personal names, I find long polysyllabic, one word names. Much like German composite nouns, really.
> The problem here is that when the name is written by the
> educated, it's written out properly.
Or in shorthand, with the shorthand pronunciation often becoming slang, and slang getting the better of language.
> In order for either of these procedures to enable a permanent
> transition, there has to be a period when literacy disappears
> long enough for the oral form of the name to predominate.
> As far as I am aware, there isn't such a period in the Holy
> Country's history, but I could be wrong here.
A takeover by a foreign language culture - e.g. the God Learners - has much the same effect.
Illiteracy has not yet reached Nochet, or the rest of the region.
End of The Glorantha Digest V7 #252
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