Name Branding

A ways back I made a list of jobs that one can pursue as a linguist that maybe they never thought about, as well as some of the more interesting alternatives as well. I know it came up in an older post a little bit, but I am seriously considering investigating some Brand/Identity companies. It seems there is a large demand for faux-foreign names and imagery.

This investigation was spurred on by a Time-Warner commercial which featured a sign that had several (to my knowledge) faux-cyrillic nameplaces on a sign (I cannot find a video online, but it just aired again, and I scribbled what I saw), specifically КАЛИНИ, ЗЕЛЕНО, and АМЕРІКА, possibly with an R instead of a Р, and the K was reversed, something that to my knowledge doesn't occur in any cyrillic language, and I can't even find a way to render here (know how? let me know). Respectively these mean something like Guelder Rose, Green, and America more or less. (Incidentally, apparently I have always been mistakingly calling Cranberries as калини also. Whoops.)

One thing I just have to mention, partically since I just went thorugh the wonderful Hanzi Smatter with a fine tooth comb hoping it contained something I read there years ago, and that it wasn't on Language Log, which doesn't seem to be responding right now. Xu Bing made a book called Tianshu or Book From The Sky filled with nouveau hanzi with no meaning. I think it's a spectacular idea, and I wish it were possible to get a copy in book form. Artistic endeavors aside, it seems that creating ficticious scripts might be a happy medium for the world of people who want some kind of stylism on their clothing or bodies or in their adverts and people who don't want to see butcheries of things we love, or nonsense like in the aforementioned commercial.

Another tale I can recall is that I bought a shirt from the band Moneen which has the text: テチホヤラチノヤヤマモナナルマユトノナ which can be transcribed as techihoyarachinoyayamamonanarumayutonona and as far as I know has no meaning, nor did it to a few Japanese I know. Another Moneen product was alleged to have some sort of "foreign writing" on the sleeve, but was barely legible. Closer analysis just revealed it to be English written in script.

Perhaps I will work on a similar project to the Book From The Sky for cyrillic, or even other scripts, partially for the sake of art, but also potentially as something somebody might be interested in using.

Then again, I can't say I'd prefer new symbols to actual content, but it might be superior to gibberish and inappropriate words, unless we're just looking for fun.