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Comment on How is Alexander the Great so great he gets that name, but not so great that just “Alexander”doesn’t disambiguate him?

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Viking_Hippie@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

So you’re telling me that, presumably due to medieval French people having an irrational fear of spaces between words or an allergy to proper kerning, his name WAS actually the equivalent of Charlesthegreat like some German compound noun weirdness?

Huh. TIL!

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GraniteM@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
“Boss, I can save you a couple of deniers’ worth of ink and paper over the course of the tome by writing Charlemagne instead of Charles Le Magne every time we refer to the great king.”

“Brilliant! You get an extra serving of gruel for lunch!”

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- Uruanna@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Save ink by removing spaces! Brilliant.
  
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  - GraniteM@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Charles Le Magne
    
    Charle~~sLe~~Magne
    
    Charlemagne
    
    Save three letters per instance of the name being used. If it’s a history of French royalty, that adds up!
    
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- Viking_Hippie@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
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Uruanna@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

an irrational fear of spaces between words or an allergy to proper kerning

Yeah uh, medieval language was absolutely not nearly as entrenched in rules and grammar, and absolutely not set in stones. Things changed from one text to another - even within the same text. The same Song of Roland writes that same name in a few different ways, some with spaces, some without, with different letters.

From the French Wikipedia, count’em :

Carles (vers 1) ou Charles (28, vers 370), Carles li magnes (68, vers 841) ou Charles li magnes (93, vers 1195), traductions de Carolus magnus, mais aussi Carlemagnes (33, vers 430) ou Charlemaignes (138, vers 1842)

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