@Mr100dragon100
Note to self: manage to find a way to slip
Nocta Incognita into
some fanwork.
Didn’t study that era but I
assume explorers didn’t use Latin to “sound fancy.” Latin was a common language for most of Europe back then and that meant the names they gave could be understood by the scholars of every country, whose language ranged anywhere from Portuguese (on the far west) to Russian (on the other end, even if they were more familiar with Greek).
And considering much of exploring new lands was about
claiming those lands as belonging to your country, it was probably pretty important to make sure everyone knew which land you were talking about.
All in all Latin is part of western culture and history so names based on Latin don’t sound
out of place in our world. Is that the case for your AU? Or would the names come off precisely as trying to “sound fancy” first and actual countries/lands second? Like putting a Latin name in Middle Earth?
Case in point, no country name is based on Latin in the
Elder Scrolls’ universe… even though the Imperials of Cyrodiil basically
are an expy of the Roman Empire.
Don’t know Latin and not awake enough to ‘cross-multiply’ cases across
Wiktionary for the proper name… but first guess for ‘Forest of the Night’ would be
Silvanocta.
Well,
actual first guess would be Sylvania, because of years of
Warhammer Fantasy… and checking Wiktionary again tells me that
Transylvania means “region across the forest” and ergo that Sylvania means “land of the forest.”
Sylva and silva are also alternate spellings of the same thing.
So…
Noctasilvania or
Silvanoctalia ? With
Noctalia for just “land of the night?” Maybe bastardized and shortened to something like
Noxilvania over the centuries? (Complete with “noxious” jokes at their expense.)
Latin’s
thing with cases means it’s probably not the correct spelling, but hopefully that’s enough groundwork for you.