origin of the phrase "Akavir"

[sphr]

The long and short of it is that, as I'm working on adding some believability to some of the terms, despite the real source of certain phrases, I'm squeezing my brain to come up with a patch explanation to SUPPORT that meaning. It just struck me that I have missed one of the most impt word : Akavir itself.

Have you guys ever wondered at the origin of the word "Akavir"? My guess is it was just made up and plastered with a fake meaning "dragon land". proof? well, I've nothing concrete, but consider why Akatosh is called Akatosh:

Akatosh - Also Known As The Old Smaug Himself

(Somebody among the dev is definitely a Tolkein fan.)

My guess is that Akavir may not have any original meanings that we can work into. So, I took it up upon myself to create one

Looking up tons of references, doing random and time-consuming dictionary dives, this is the best I've came up with:

origin : Sanskrit (not bad, as it adds some credibility to what I'm doing. I happen to be using sanskrit-influenced terms for really really ancient words : e.g. naga etc).

naga : serpent (in our context, this also means dragon).
vira : man/hero/chief(possibly of gods) or heroic/strong/powerful/eminent

My current take is that "Akavir" is derived long ago from the phrase "nagavira", which means : Dragon-God. (twisted the meaning of vira a little here)
Throughout the ages, the pronounciation is slightly warped as it is "imitated" by people who no longer speak the original language.
So, nagavira ==> agavira ==> Akavir.

So when we say Akavir, it actually just meant Dragon-God in the "ancient" tongue. The "pseudo-correct" way to call the continent is "The Lands of Akavir", that translates to "The Lands of the Dragon-Gods". Of course, only the pesky scholars are this picky. "Nowadays", folks just take the single word Akavir to mean "Land of the Dragons" or just "Dragon Land"

[Ysne]

Nice work sphr.

[Arbiter]

Sounds like Tamriel folk are mainstreaming.

[thaimodz]

That sounds legit. In my country, we have like 20 hours of training in basic Sanskrit words used in Thai language, and I can confirm it holds great weight. Both from the lore, and the language, that makes it the greatest explanation.

I will try to write it in Devanagari, and find a way if the Akaviri writing and Devanagari have anything in common.

Translate English->Devanagari from [This Page], can't seem to get it work in this bb, so please look at the 1kb small attachment. (I hope I won't get any tickets for this)

Hope when I run OB I can see any similarities.

[sphr]

Hmm, the translater your link points to shows a slightly different script. Could be due to different standards in romanization and transliteration?

I did some more swimming around and found that "aga" means snake in sanskrit too, which is close to "aka". but I still feel that naga-vira has a nicer ring

anyways, just for fun, here are some of the online language resources I've used, including an online sanskrit dictionary that I'm using.

http://akavir.pbwiki.com/Links

[Mortazo]

Well, either way it seems, at least in old Tamerialic, that "Aka" means dragon. I'm sure there is a diffrent word for dragon in the varius Akaviri tounges so you are probebly justified.