And did I read it in your lj?

No, I did not -- foolish foolish me. And I didn't notice the William problem on first reading. (I did notice the Alessandro/Alexander thing -- but was thinking you chose the English version for simplicity?)

I'm wondering who else may show up in this alternate Buffiverse. It's like 1602 except all Jossiverse. And not set in 1602.

Being the Vatican, Latin would be more prevalent, though I imagine his family went with the vernacular. I've seen multiple spellings of Alexander from the period, especially with Pope Alexander, the freak. I can have "Guillermo" call him Alessandro--he's not too highly educated in this one. Roger Wyndham is the smart one here, he'll be popping up soon. I'm checking with various sources to make sure the name forms are at least known in this time frame for the various countries.

That's a fun story brewing there, but sumi's right about Guillermo being Spanish. Italian surnames can be infuriatingly tricky; and yes, calling him "Sandro" would be perfect.

I'm now planning a scene of him talkng to one of the other guys from his home village, who will call him Sandro. A nice bit of mental exploration about how Sandro is the son of a sheepherder and Alexander is the student of Bramante.

I'm not even trying to think about how medieval forms of the language would hold over in certain circles. I'm saving that for the superstitions.

Worse, the medieval forms would certainly have differed from area to area, along with the slang forms. As in, Florentine street-speak way different from Roman street-speak, which is a whole nother vetro di vino than what you'll hear in Sicily or the hill country in Umbria.

Gah, the city-state dialects. Plus whatever Franco-Germanic forms have drifted in over the border ...

It's bad enough Charles VII(?) and his army are wandering in and out of Rome at whim. But chaos is the perfect breeding ground for drama.

Well, if we're talking William the Bloody, we talking, what? 19th century. Huh.

I wouldn't worry about too much variation detail, unless you want to get really deep into it; personally, it's the sort of thing I never touch unless someone's paying me, which, in fact just happened. I literally had to go to the Chair of Medieval French at OSU, because - it gets no dopier than this - I had no idea whether the French familiar "tu" existed as early as 1381. And since the ghost in "Famous Flower" is screaming at her daughter in French, and since had she been modern she would have used the familiar rather than the formal vous, I needed to know.

Turns out, yes, it did exist, that early and earlier; it appears in Roman de la Rose. But I felt like a shmuck, not knowing.

That's intriguing, Connie. I noticed you had a story in your LJ, but have been so behind in my reading there, I thought I'd catch it later.

I like this.

Connie -- I don't know how important this is but after I went to bed last night I suddenly realized that given the di Irlanda thing -- it might just be d'Irlanda -- with no ls at all.

It feels better in the mouth that way.

It feels better in the mouth that way.

I'm just going to stare at that sentence and snicker like a twelve-year-old.