By Cliff Jones, Jr.
The title "Adaleide in Ozghard" seems pretty simple: Adaleide is the girl, and Ozghard is the place. I wanted to follow the same pattern as "Alice in Wonderland" but also throw an "Oz" in there to show the connections to both stories. But there's a lot more to it than that, of course.
My background is in linguistics with a focus on phonology (pronunciation) and acquisition (learning). Language change over time is a hugely fascinating subject for me. I like to take two related words (say "father" and "padre") and explore their origins, how it is they came to look so different.
To get the name "Adaleide," I first explored the etymology of the name "Alice" to see if I might be able to connect it up with "Dorothy" in some way, however dubious. I found the old Germanic name "Adalheidis," which led me to "Adaleide." If you focus on the consonants, you get D-L-D, which is phonologically similar to the D-R-Th of "Dorothy."
The name "Ozghard" comes from a dialect of the Semitic language I constructed for the book. It translates to "the Enduring Land." The roots come from Ancient Hebrew, but the similarity to "Asgard" is no coincidence.
A/N: Okay, this is fascinating! Cliff Jones, Jr. put so much research into every letter of this title, so be sure to vote by clicking on the star if you appreciate the time and effort that went into ADALEIDE IN OZGHARD, and read this enchanting tale for yourself by going to the dedication at the top of the page. The voice(s) in this work is(are) top notch! You will understand the plural option once you begin the story.
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Wattys2015 ENTITLED
RandomWhat is the story behind your title? Most novels have a paragraph deep within the pages that gives a profound connection to the title of the work. Sometimes the title is more obvious, or has changed over time. Whatever the case, please share in 200...
