# Cities

*The Whorl list — 2 messages, 2 voices, 13 Jul 1998*

<https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/whorl/488>

> Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright
> in each message remains with the person who wrote it.
> Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original
> archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than
> retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.

---

### mary whalen
*13 Jul 1998, 23:43*

This is Sean Whalen (prion).

I was just wondering about the names of the cities in the Whorl and
their meaning.

Viron:  Latin for a circle, center.  Viron is surrounded by other
cities in circular pattern.  Suggests the word environ.

Limna:  Latin for the edge.  It's at the edge of Viron.

Palustria:  Latin for swampy place.  Surrounded by swamps.

Gens:  Latin for a family line, a clan.

Urbs:  Latin for city.

Ur:  Name of an ancient city on Earth.

Wick:  Just what it says, as far as I know.

Trivigaunte:  I don't know about this.  Can anyone help?


prion

---

### Michael Straight
*14 Jul 1998, 08:36 · follows mary whalen*

> On Mon, 13 Jul 1998, Sean Whalen wrote:
> I was just wondering about the names of the cities in the Whorl and
> their meaning.
> 
> Viron:  Latin for a circle, center.  Viron is surrounded by other
> cities in circular pattern.  Suggests the word environ.

When I first read the books, I assumed that as 'Whorl' was a neolgism
describing a World that Whirls, 'Viron' was once short for environment, in
the sense of "artificial environment" or "total environment"--a lost
reference to the artificiality of the Whorl.

Since it turns out that 'Viron' is hardly the only city or even the
central one, it doesn't really make sense that it would have that kind of
name while the other cities don't.

-Rostrum

---