A little help with Italian, please ...

[rust]

For my Malita setting I need a name for the future new capital of the island,

and I do not want to use the real Malta's Valetta, because the grand mas-

ter that city is named for will probably not exist in my alternate timeline.

I thought about using the Italian translation of City of the Order or City of

Knights, and my translation program delivered:

City of the Order = Città dell'Ordine (short name of the city: Ordine)

City of Knights = Città dei Cavalieri (short name of the city: Cavalieri)

However, my Italian is almost nonexistent, so I have no idea whether these

translations are correct and make sense.

Perhaps one of the Italian members of the community could help me ?

Thank you.

[GianniVacca]

The translations are perfectly correct, though I'd use a more mediaeval sounding name, like Castel de' Cavalieri or Mastio dell'Ordine. Paolo can probably give better ideas.

cheers

[rust]

Thank you very much indeed.

Edit.:

I really like Mastio dell'Ordine, it sounds good, and the commonly used shortened

city name Mastio does so, too.

Edited September 9, 2009 by rust

[RosenMcStern]

Both names are correct, but have no correspondence in the real world. Very few Italian cities are named "Città". No one is name "Mastio", although the word is commonly used to denote the inner element of a late medieval castle.

The correct name composition for a late medieval/earlhy renaissance is not with the word "City" but with the word "Castle", like in the English "-chester" or "-caster", the Latvian "-pils", the French "Chateau-", etc. Or, in Italian, "Castelfranco", "Castelbuono", "Castelfidardo", etc. In your example, the end result would be "Castellordine" or "Castelcavalieri". However, the result is awfully dull, something like "wheel-of-a-vehicle", because it is obvious that a castle is supposed to hold knights.

I think we can find a good name for you cities when you can describe the peculiarities of your order, rust. What is in their coat of arms? Who is their Patron Saint? What is their nickname? If you can answer these questions, we can find a much better-sounding name!

[rust]

I think we can find a good name for you cities when you can describe the peculiarities of your order, rust. What is in their coat of arms? Who is their Patron Saint? What is their nickname? If you can answer these questions, we can find a much better-sounding name!

Ah, I see - and thank you very much for your help.

I want to stay rather close to the historical role model, so the coat of arms

of the order would be a Maltese Cross, and the patron saint would be Saint

John. I have no idea concerning a nickname, the only other name that comes

to my mind is the earlier name of the order, Knights Hospitaller.

Edit.:

Oh, and I forgot to mention that it is a port city, the "architect's plan" looks

like this:

Edited September 9, 2009 by rust

[RosenMcStern]

If the Knights are a derivation of the Hospitallers, a good name for the city could be Castelspedaleri (which would become Castelpedaleri in a short time). But if the Order kept the tradition of the Hospitallers, then the city would also have hosted a healer's house at least, and it could have been called "Healer's Castle". This could give a name like "Castello del Cerusico" o "Castello dei Cerusichi", which would contract into Castelcerusco or Castelceruschi (or even Castelrusco).

All these are plausible Italian names that would fit.

[rust]

Thank you very much. :)

Since the knights will indeed establish the island's first hospital ever, and

since this is very likely to become their most important achievement from

the point of view of the islanders, I will use Castelcerusco.