OpenGeofiction
Flag:
I just created a flag for the capital of Gobrassanya - Gobras City. I already added it to the Wiki-Page (Image in full resolution). The background color is the same as of the national flag and I also added the Gobrassanya star but I thought an eagle would be nice to show the “power of the government”. I also added the text line “Thi húeron ontha riwe plevín” which means “The heart at the right site” as the motto of the country to the Gobrassanya wiki page.
Progress in Gobras City:
(I also edited quite a bit of eastern Gobras City area with the help of other builders. –> Luhuo and Chanayétte districts.)
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I am interested in what you think about the flag and if you have ideas for improvements. Also I am not very sure wheter I should remove the text line on the Gobras City flag or not. What do you think?
Regards,
Bstn
Discussion
Comment from isleño on 30 January 2016 at 18:32
Hey there, nice design. If you’re interested in ideas for improvements, I would only recommend some slight changes: removing the text (as you suggested), widening the vertical bars to make them more visible, and getting an eagle that looks a bit more “official.”
Something like this: http://i.imgur.com/uB6DP9O.png
If you’re interested in flags, be sure to check out our wiki tutorial for Making realistic flags.
What language is the text, btw?
Comment from Bstn on 30 January 2016 at 19:15
@ isleño Thank you for your comment. I totally overlooked the guide for making realistic flags. Your flag is ways better and I will add it to the wiki if you allow it to me. The text is written in Gobrassian as it is the national language of Gobrassanya. Greetings, Bstn.
Comment from Sarepava on 30 January 2016 at 21:19
Looks a nice concept, but I agree with isleño about revisions. Also, there’s certain implications about having the capital flag so close to the national flag design - I don’t think this is very common in the real world as city flags tend to be based on heraldry from before the nation-state period of history. On the other hand, Gobrassanya is quite a new country.
Comment from Bstn on 30 January 2016 at 22:08
I thought about the flag layout in that way:
Left site default Gobrassanya flag part with star ca. 1/3 of the district flag. The right 2/3 of the district flag is filled with the coat of arms of the district. So the flags are part solid and part specific.
Comment from isleño on 31 January 2016 at 00:34
@Bstn— Great, feel free to upload it as a new version of the flag. In the “file changes” box we should note that the eagle comes from wikimedia commons user Benzebuth198 (CC-BY-SA-3.0). Original file: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Blason_Arendonk.svg
As for the Gobrassian language… you may want to consult with other users in Gobrassanya before inventing it yourself. Since the Gobrassanya wiki page was started, the country has overwhelmingly been mapped in English, which has spurred some talk that “Gobrassian,” the national language, should really just be a dialect of English/Ingerish. (There are indigenous Gobrasi languages, which account for the interesting place names, but they aren’t the same as “Gobrassian.”) Anyway, definitely something to think about. :-)
Comment from Portopolis on 31 January 2016 at 23:22
I like the design but when someone talks about city flags I like to refer them to this video. https://www.ted.com/talks/roman_mars_why_city_flags_may_be_the_worst_designed_thing_you_ve_never_noticed?language=en You could also have a stereotypical bad city flag.
Comment from Bstn on 1 February 2016 at 15:22
@ Portopolis What a great and funny vid. :) I tried to use it practical in the Lonowai District flag as the orange circle is the sun and the blue colors are the ocean and the reef colors.
Comment from wangi on 1 February 2016 at 15:23
Yeah, the Gobrassian text stood out to me too. Speaking about naming, am I going crazy or was there a name generator for Gobrassian? I’m thinking along the lines of the Khaiwoon one
Comment from Bstn on 1 February 2016 at 16:48
@wangi No name generator. Just english base language with some accent letters.
Comment from wangi on 1 February 2016 at 17:07
I was thinking more about the suburbs and other features in Gobras City which had already been named. I /thought/ I’d used a generator to come up with them; e.g.: Meeonoa, Omoranta, Lhatolly, Lhatvohg, Oziato, Lamong, Cele, Yuiona (plus Easky30’s Uroobai, Koquino, Avawoon, Yalarah etc).
No accents to be seen - I don’t think Gobrassian would have them. Some of the letter choices and repeating vowels seem to be the unique factors.
Comment from isleño on 1 February 2016 at 19:13
The “indigenous” names throughout Gobrassanya are so different from one another that it’s almost impossible to imagine that they came from a single language. That’s one reason why the idea of “Gobrassian” as a unified language didn’t end up being very viable.
The only language that spans the whole country is English, and almost every labeled object in Gobrassanya is labeled in English, so the most obvious explanation for the term “Gobrassian” is that it means something like “Australian” or “American” — a dialect of English/Ingerish.
To explain the huge variety of “indigenous” place names that don’t seem to come from any single language, it’s easy to imagine many groups of native people who originally inhabited the country. This is why the Gobrasi peoples have been proposed: different groups of native inhabitants who spoke different languages in different areas.
To generate new names in the Gobrasi languages, I think the best way might be to just remix parts of the nearby existing names, especially those that already look similar. Like, “Uroobai” and “Avawoon” for example, so you could recombine them to form “Boonvai” or “Waivuroon.”
Comment from Easky30 on 1 February 2016 at 20:07
When I label the suburbs and streets in Gobras City I really don’t think of the language behind it. The names I label pretty much come up as I draw them on the fly sometimes trying to make them sound a little similar. I do the same for Samiloor & Orinoco. I assume they have their own language but I label it in English with some foreign sounding names so i can understand it. I would be nice to have a set of Gobrasani street suffix names so I would have more options in the residential areas using labels other than “Grove” “Lane” “Way” etc.
Comment from wangi on 2 February 2016 at 10:45
I work from this set: Road, Place, Street, Lane, Way, Crescent, Circle, Parade, Close, Pend, Grove, Trail, Drive, Court, Avenue, Row, Boulevard, Gardens, Walk, Trace, Terrace, Wynd, View, Green, Grove. Obviously there’s an intrinsic meaning for many of them, so they can’t be used on any road.
But you’re thinking about unique, Gobrasi, ones?
Comment from wangi on 2 February 2016 at 12:58
I’ve added http://opengeofiction.net/wiki/index.php/OGF:Gobras_City#Naming on the street naming guides
Comment from Bstn on 2 February 2016 at 18:16
@wangi Actually, unique street names would be nice but if you look at Gobrassanya the streets are mostly labeled with “street, road, drive, Blvd., Ave.” and I think it’s better to continue working with the default “package” of endings. By the way when I started working in Gobrassanya I mostly thought about Hawaiian city names because of Lonowai which has references to Hawaii and also the southeastern cities like Loonawarra or Gorrawati.
Comment from wangi on 2 February 2016 at 19:18
These are all already in use, just documenting that. 8 pends; >30 Terrace; 8 Trace; 5 Wynd; loads of Green, Terrace; 10 Quay … even 5 Parades.
Most of the Gobras City suburbs have streets with a common name, differing in the suffix.
Comment from wangi on 2 February 2016 at 19:40
I’ve created a list of the street names already in use: http://opengeofiction.net/wiki/index.php/OGF:Gobras_City/Street_names
(some of the unexpected values here are due to name tag being used when ref should have been)
Comment from isleño on 2 February 2016 at 20:22
Thanks for the table, wangi. Looking at the streets that currently exist in Gobras City, I agree with Bstn that it’s probably a good idea to continue using the English endings.
Lonowai of course is slightly different from mainland Gobrassanya, so the naming patterns are different there. Lonowai’s native inhabitants are the Lono people, who are not Gobrasi, but instead are related of the people of Onnutu (the languages of the Lono and Onnutuans resemble Hawaiian superficially, but they’re not related to Hawaiian). In SE Gobrassanya, on the other hand, the names like Loonawarra or Gorrawati are meant to originate from the Gobrasi languages native to that area.
If new names in Gobrassanya resemble the names around them, that’s probably a good rule of thumb to follow. I have to say it’s nice to see people are thinking about this stuff. :-)