M-Russians, M-Ukrainians, and M-Circassians in east-central Karameikos
by Travis HenryVarious folks in the Vaults have touched on the RW ethnic flavors of Traladarans. I'd like to recap and offer a few more details.
I'd suggest the main overall default Traladaran flavor is Bulgarian (or rather, Old Bulgarian, aka Old Church Slavonic), since the Bulgarian Orthodox Church and the Bulgarian Empire vis-a-vis the Greek Orthodox Church and the Byzantine Empire are the closest historical parallels of Traladara vis-a-vis Thyatis. And the heretical worship of Duke Stefan is something like the Bogomils. I'd suggest that generic M-Slavic names, particularly ones that first appear in GAZ1, could be interpreted as M-Bulgarian (M-Old Church Slavonic).
We also know of the many Romanian names (Sulescu) in the south. It'd be interesting to see if these Romanian names came from a particular TSR designer.
We can also tell that Koriszegy Keep = Hungarian. "sz" and "gy" are typically Hungarian.
I'd now like to identify other ethnolinguistic flavors, seen in B10:
-Volaga (River) < Russian Volga River and vlaga "wetness/moisture" and Ukrainian vologa "moisture"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volga
-Misha (Misha's Ferry) = Misha, Russian diminutive of Mikhail (Michael). https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Misha
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misha_(disambiguation)
-Sielo (Settlement) < Russian selo "village".
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D1%81%D ... BE#Russian
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstr ... lavic/selo
Note, though many Slavic languages have some form of selo "village", Russian is the one where the /e/ is palatalized, like: syelo / sielo. Bulgarian and Ukrainian are not palatized. So Sielo is specifically M-Russian.
-Hokol (Settlement) < Khokol, Ukrainian ethnic self-identifying word, referring to a traditional haircut of the Ukrainian Cossacks, with shaved sides and a topknot or mohawk on top. Also presently used by Russians as an ethnic slur against Ukrainians. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oseledets
-Cherkass (Settlement) < Cherkess, the Russian word for a Circassian. The Circassians are a nationality from the eastern shore of the Black Sea, which speaks a North Caucasic language named Circassian. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherkess
I'd suggest that the folk of Cherkass are M-Circassians.
-Ilyakana (Settlement) < Ilya-, Russian and Ukrainian form of Hebrew "Elijah" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilya
I don't know what the "-kana" represents, though looks Russian, like "Svetlana."
-Sukiskyn (Settlement) = ?
-Segenyev (Settlement) = looks approximately Russian (or Bulgarian). But since its coined by the same TSR author as other more certainly Russian names (e.g. Sielo), we can say Russian.
-Syereb (River). Looks Russian. Maybe based on the Russian word for "Serb." (???) That's only a wild guess though. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D1%81%D ... 0%B1%D1%8B
***
The majority of the names are clearly Russian: Misha, Sielo, and Volaga. And even "Cherkass" (the M-Circassian settlement) is known by its Russian form. So, M-Russian is the predominant flavor of Traladaran in east-central Karameikos.
But there's also an M-Ukrainian settlement (Hokol), and an M-Circassian settlement (Cherkass)...though the people of Cherkass themselves probably call their settlement "Adyghe" (the word for "a Circassian" in the Circassian lanuage).
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D0%B0%D ... 0%B3%D1%8D
In my "Analysing the Languages of Mystara" article in the Vaults, I suggest that, at least by 1000AC, there is only one Traladaran language, which is an analogue of M-Old Church Slavonic / Old Bulgarian (or M-Modern Bulgarian, for simplicity's sake), and that all the other ethnic flavors we see are localisms of Traladaran, which retain naming traditions and "flavorful words" which evoke other RW languages (such as Romanian, Hungarian, Russian, Ukrainian, and Circassian).