'He of the Reed, He of the Bee' or 'King of the Upper and Lower Egypt'?
And the list goes on...
Choices are many and none are satisfactory.
Fully conveying concepts from flexible, inflective languages, such as Avestan, Babylonian and Indian, and from Old Persian with meager known vocabulary, to English are bound to be imperfect. Poetry is particularly problematic, where not just meanings of words, but the ornamental aspects of them, such as sounds and shapes are either lost in translation or at best meaningless in transliteration.
Scribes of the Achaemenid Empire, armed with knowledge of offical court languages, Aramaic, Akkadian, Elamite and Persian, interpreted, translated and transcribed royal decrees and documents as called for in various situations.
Modern scholars and novelist mostly follow convention of using the words in their best known English forms for readibility and ease of understanding. A practice that would have confused ancient Hellenes themselves, as there was no letter 'c' in Greek alphabet.
The language of Roxanâ Romance is decidedly mixed, weaving ancient names and words here and there from all the cultures in the World of Roxana. While the choice could regrettably slow down the reader with unfamiliar names, words and places, and invite inconsistancy and error, hopefully it also highlights the beauty, richness and romance of all the languages, spoken and written, during the reign of the imperial Achaemenids.
