(urth) Etymology/meaning/onomatopoeic aspects of the word "Urth"

[Joe Riley]

All of the above (and good luck).

Dave Lebling <dlebling at hyraxes.com> wrote:  Pavel,

Wolfe's substitution of a "U" for "EA" in English works well because English spelling and English pronunciation are so dissimilar. I don't know if the opportunity exists in Czech; my limited knowledge of it indicates words are mostly pronounced just as they are spelled. The best opportunity would seem to be a pun of some sort on "zemì"; just adding "ur" to it seems too unsubtle.

Is there a Czech word similar to "zemì" that has interesting resonances, the way "Urth" suggests the Norns, Norse mythology in general, language evolution (a future English-speaker might spell "Earth" as "Urth" -- so this is a joke about pulp SF's take on future language evolution), etc? How would one expect Czech to evolve in a million years?

Is there a set of old Slavic gods or goddesses associated with the  Earth-Mars-Venus triad? Is there an allusive pun to be made like the "present"="gift" pun Wolfe makes? (I know people once made much of the fact that in German "gift"="poison", for example.)

I think the addition of "Ur" (if Czech speakers would "get it") isn't bad at all, as it goes along with Wolfe's caginess about whether we are the ancestors or the descendants of the people of Urth.

-- Dave Lebling

Pavel Bakiè wrote:   A question for the first-language speakers out there: We have a discussion going on concerning a proper rendering of the word "Urth" into Czech, and would appreciate any comments concerning the connotations the word has for a native speaker, apart form the obvious "Earth". An existing translation of The Shadow of the Torturer has "Urzemì", which translates literally as "Ur-Earth" (without the repetition of the "r" phoneme or the "vowel-consonant[s]" syllable structure, of course).

I did search for previous threads concerning the topic, but the fact of the archive-site being itself called Urth made it somewhat difficult.


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