Evidence dossier: Atlantís

Evidence dossier 044 — Atlantís. Every exhibit catalogued, every ruling stated with its grounds.

At a Glance

• Canonical form: Atlantís
• Original script: Ἀτλαντίς
• Pantheon: Greek-location
• Convention: the tradition’s own scholarly transliteration standard
• False forms on record: 0
• Contested forms: none attested
• Series: The Canonical Register, No. 44 of 287

The Evidence

Exhibit 1 — the attestation. The name is attested as Ἀτλαντίς, in the attestation LSJ and Beekes, Etymological Dictionary of Greek give us. On the evidence, it means "Daughter of Atlas; the legendary lost island civilization". The canonical transliteration is Atlantís.

Exhibit 2 — the preserved marks. i → í (Acute on iota). Each is verifiable against the sources named in the attestation.

Exhibit 3 — the flattened form. The plain form atlantis is not false — it is a fallback, and the register is exact about what that means. In systems that cannot carry diacritics (legacy databases, older tooling, parts of the address-bar pipeline) the flattened form is the accepted vehicle, and the rulebook names it explicitly as the final rung of the fallback hierarchy: full restoration first, circumflex where attested, macron-only by the academic standard, an attested variant, and only then plain ASCII.

What the fallback status forbids is promotion: atlantis may carry the name where marks are impossible, but it may not represent the name where marks are possible. Every mark it drops — i → í — is a fact the sources recorded. A fallback is a vehicle, never the primary.

Exhibit 4 — the physical record. No archaeological site has been convincingly identified with Plato's Atlantis. The story has inspired searches at Santorini (Thera), the Spartel Bank, Andalusia, and elsewhere, but these remain speculative. The material legacy of Atlantis is therefore literary and cultural: Plato's dialogues, later ancient geographies, and two millennia of subsequent interpretation, art, and pseudo-archaeology.

Exhibit 5 — the continuing record. Atlantis is the most influential fictional civilization in Western history. It appears in novels, films, comics, and New Age belief as a symbol of lost wisdom, advanced technology, and catastrophic hubris.

The Convention's Own History

Every tradition in this register has its own scholarly transliteration standard, built by its own specialists over decades or centuries, and the register follows each on its own terms: the tradition’s own standard. The principle that unifies them is the one the whole project stands on: a name is evidence, and evidence is not negotiable — not for keyboards, not for convenience, not for anyone.

The Protocol's Position

Can the canonical form live in the address bar? Almost always, yes. IDNA 2008 admits every mark this register defends — the DNS stores them as `xn--` punycode and modern browsers render them natively. The real frictions are practical, not legal: some registrars stock only part of the IDN space, so a theoretically valid name can be temporarily unbuyable; and stacked combinations (an acute riding a macron) remain awkward to type on mobile keyboards even where the protocol accepts them.

The project's answer is a ranked ladder, not a compromise: the full restoration first, then attested fallbacks in descending order of completeness. The ladder's lowest rung, plain ASCII, is a vehicle for legacy systems — sanctioned, but never presented as the scholarly form.

The Verdict

Case closed on Atlantís: canonical, cited, and defended. The keyboard form atlantis rides as the sanctioned fallback — and stays in that lane. The register's files remain open: if a source surfaces that changes any line of this entry, the entry changes. Until then, the temple at /sites/atlantis/ holds the canonical form.

The docket for this ruling: no false forms on the docket; 1 preserved mark verified: i → í; no contested forms attested; the attestation rests on 6 cited sources — LSJ, Beekes, Etymological Dictionary of Greek, Plato, Timaeus.

The Register Continues

This is one of 287 entries in the Canonical Register — the authoritative reference for every flagship temple. The temple's founding dispatch tells the name's story; its Restoration File details the marks; its Resonance File reads the archetype into the industries. The blog index holds the whole archive, and the Rulebook states the convention this register enforces.

Continue the register — previous entry: ʾAṯiratu (read it) · next entry: Átlas (read it).

The Canonical Register is written from the same canonical record as the lexicon itself. If a false form is missing from this page, it is because the evidence does not support calling it false — or because we have not seen it yet. Show us, with a citation, and the register will answer.