Rajasthan Empire in-game name spelled wrong (as Rajastan)

[CrazyRat]

It may be tempting to assume that Rajasthan is spelled with -stan just like all the -stans. I assume that's why it is called 'Rajastan' in game. However, this is wrong. The -stan countries use Persian formant (-istān / - estān) while the proper term Rajasthan was formed around the Hindi/Indo-Aryan word for place (sthān in modern Hindi; just for reference: https://dsal.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/app/mcgregor_query.py?qs=स्थान&searchhws=yes&matchtype=exact); the proper transcription using the description used in academia would be Rājsthān while the version used in English is Rajasthan.

While that's nowhere near an urgent issue, it also requires just changing one letter in localisation - and so I would love to get it corrected

PS. and to be sure: there are languages which spell Rajasthan without 'h'. However, English is not one of them - and there aren't really good reasons (like immersion or faithfulness to the original language of the word) for spelling 'Rajastan' in English.

 

[DukeLeto42]

This seems to be an odd one. I think you're correct, but the statement "used in academia" hides a lot of wonkiness. With an extremely crude search (plugging the terms into a random US university library search), I'm seeing all three (Rajastan, Rajasthan, and Rājsthān) in use in current academic writings. There's probably a lot more to parse, such as where they're writing from (US, UK, rest of the English-speaking world) and what their expertise is, but suffice to say it looks like a bit of a mess.

Still, that's no reason to not have CK3 get it right if it can.

I'm also wondering if Mughal rule is how English got "Rajastan" as a spelling.

 

[CrazyRat]

This seems to be an odd one. I think you're correct, but the statement "used in academia" hides a lot of wonkiness. With an extremely crude search (plugging the terms into a random US university library search), I'm seeing all three (Rajastan, Rajasthan, and Rājsthān) in use in current academic writings. There's probably a lot more to parse, such as where they're writing from (US, UK, rest of the English-speaking world) and what their expertise is, but suffice to say it looks like a bit of a mess.

Still, that's no reason to not have CK3 get it right if it can.

I wasn’t talking about usage of names in English but academic transliteration: i.e. the system used for the writing of the Hindi words in Roman alphabet, and IAST standard in specific. [I am actually doing my PhD on Indian Romance in the Hindi dialects (mainly Avadhi and Braj Bhasha); I assure you that I know how Hindi transliteration works ] It just meant to illustrate what the source word looks like in Hindi - and that the dominant (Rajasthan) spelling is closer to the word.

Now, as for the usage in English… well, you are right that you can find a ‘Rajastan’ form in English. However, they aren’t used nearly as often. If you enter ‘Rajastan’ in Google you will get circa 1 mln results while ‘Rajasthan’ yields more than 1 billion results Just to show that Rajasthan is really a dominant spelling in English.

I'm also wondering if Mughal rule is how English got "Rajastan" as a spelling.

I really don’t know. However, the most significant British account from the period – Tod’s Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan – uses ‘Rajasthan’ spelling so I would be surprised to learn that 'Rajastan' would be a legacy of persistent spelling in colonial times. Especially since this region as a distinct political and cultural space is quite recent.[/QUOTE][/QUOTE]

 

[DukeLeto42]

Interesting - thanks very much for the explanation (especially the British source).

I do apologize if anything I said implied you don't know your stuff, having been on the receiving end of that when it comes to my own PhD work on environmental history. Your comments are really helpful to clear up the confusion from the brief glance at its use in academic writing - I know all too well when a term is being used without thought to its correct transliteration (or translation).

 

[Eltener]

I don't actually know but could it be that they're using the Urdu transliteration rather than the Hindi one? I know that Academia is where the differences between the two languages are greatest. Alternatively, they might be going for a Persian transliteration or one from a Turkic language since the closest historical equivalent to the de-jure borders of the empire in the game during the time period of the game would prolly be the Ghurid or Delhi sultanates. I think in CK2 the empire title the Delhi sultanate used in later start dates was the Rajastan one even. I am only speculating though.

 

[CrazyRat]

I don't actually know but could it be that they're using the Urdu transliteration rather than the Hindi one? I know that Academia is where the differences between the two languages are greatest.

Urdu has it just the same Moreover, you would find a big debate about what Urdu and Hindi distinction even means during this frame with various cases like rekhta in between.

Alternatively, they might be going for a Persian transliteration or one from a Turkic language since the closest historical equivalent to the de-jure borders of the empire in the game during the time period of the game would prolly be the Ghurid or Delhi sultanates. I think in CK2 the empire title the Delhi sultanate used in later start dates was the Rajastan one even. I am only speculating though.

I doubt that they have used any particular transliterations I would think that it was suggestion by all the -stan countries and assumption that -sthan must have been an error. (I brought it up to demonstrate that Rajasthan isn’t really a misrepresentation of a term.)

However, I take that „it would be called like…” may be a valid concern. Lemme do a little summary of from the Lodrick’s article in Idea of Rajasthan anthology:

Spoiler

]the distinctiveness of the region dates back only to post-1192 period where it became one of the only regions Rajput survived in. (Whereas before there wasn’t too much difference between Rajput rulers in Rajasthan and e.g. in Delhi.) The region subsequently developed cultural distinctiveness perceivable from the outside. This led to Mughals grouping the regional policies in the Ajmer subah (province)… more than 100 years after end date of CK3. That was a first event in which Rajasthan became a distinct political region

However, the cultural distinctiveness was mostly visible to the outsiders. The Rajasthan was a relatively peripherial region between – and different from – major cultural production centers bordering it. (That doesn’t mean Rajasthani poetry didn’t play a great role in the evolution of the Hindi literature!) Thus, it was still a weakly delineated region – and while some inklings of regional identity existed even then, it blossomed only in 20th century.

This political distinctiveness – with relatively the same borders – was upheld by the British East India Company when the Rajputana Agency was created. However, the political region was still relatively new during the period in between that so you wouldn’t find a lot of established terminology – and in fact, the Rajasthan name may have appeared only after British East Indian Company began dominating in Rajasthan. (However, I am less certain on that: you can find an information that the name was first used in the Annals and Antiquities… but internet informations on South Asia are notoriously unreliable.)

The region was neither really established during most of CK3 frame, nor was this precise name in use. Thus, 'Rajasthan but in Persian' is not something that would be used by would be conquerors. Well, especially >especially< since the historical region (as mentioned above) arose around the policies that weren't assimilated in the Ghurid empire.

PS. Of course, there is also matter of Rajasthan in CK3 and Rajasthan-as-a-region being wildly mismatched but that's an entirely different can of worms.

 

[FishieFan]

It may be tempting to assume that Rajasthan is spelled with -stan just like all the -stans. I assume that's why it is called 'Rajastan' in game. However, this is wrong. The -stan countries use Persian formant (-istān / - estān) while the proper term Rajasthan was formed around the Hindi/Indo-Aryan word for place (sthān in modern Hindi; just for reference: https://dsal.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/app/mcgregor_query.py?qs=स्थान&searchhws=yes&matchtype=exact); the proper transcription using the description used in academia would be Rājsthān while the version used in English is Rajasthan.

While that's nowhere near an urgent issue, it also requires just changing one letter in localisation - and so I would love to get it corrected

PS. and to be sure: there are languages which spell Rajasthan without 'h'. However, English is not one of them - and there aren't really good reasons (like immersion or faithfulness to the original language of the word) for spelling 'Rajastan' in English.

Its stan because its also hindustan

 

[CrazyRat]

Yeah, there is a word Hindustan. It is somewhat well-known and I would assume that most people here have heard about it. It doesn’t transform into a counterpoint. Here, have a spoilered note on some linguistic matters :

Spoiler

Hindi and other Northern Indian languages are a product of various linguistic influences. Words are grouped into tatsama (Sanskrit loandwords), tadbhava (words of Sanskrit origins), deshi (words originating in South Asia but not Sanskritic; mostly things like Dravidian influences etc.), videshi (‘foreign’ words: borrowings from Arabic, Persian, English, etc.); moreover, there are very often many synonyms to choose from. The words hr̥day [tatsama], hiyā [tadbhava], dil [videshi] would each be found in the dictionary. However, they would not be the same: because the context each words would be chosen in would be different.

Similarly, the Persian formant -istān shows up in Hindi. You have words like registān (‘desert’; from Persian ‘reg’ ‘), etc.; but these words are typically used with the videshi corresponding words that are most often of Persian origin. Hind was a Persian toponym for area around the Indus – as well as Hindustan. Thus, Hindustan / Hind just functions great as both Persian-language description of this land and as a name in contemporary Hindi.

Of course, the linguistic practices are fluid and you can totally get stuff like boriyyāt (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/बोरियत) where the elements of the different origin [here: English and Arabic] produce a new word. However, such cases are much rarer – and while using -istān suffix it with rāj would make some sense, it would be relatively weirder. (Possible, though.)

Yet that is not what happened. Thus, while ‘Rajistan’ is a name that could make sense, the actual name became Rajasthan.

That may be a bit of bad example – because I don’t know too much about English toponyms – but I imagine that it would be quite similar to how -burg, -ville, -burg(h) would be all acceptable formants of toponyms in English... but once Petersburg becomes a Petersburg in common usage it is not a Petertown or Petersville anymore.

Now, I think that will be end of this topic for me. I mean: I generally am pretty sure about my point – and I think that I got across my main points. If Devs are reading the forums, I think that they may make their own decision.. If they don’t… well, then arguing about this decision doesn’t exactly do anything too productive

 

[Riaman98]

Rajastan isnt even real name for north inida empire, if indian hindu/buddhist/jain call it Aryavart, if muslim arabic al hind, if Turkic/persian called it hindustan.

 

[Portable Grump]

I will pass this on to the team, thanks for reporting! (Also this was a very interesting discussion and I enjoyed the read! )