Robert E. Howard is turning over in his grave.
“HYPERBORIA” ???
WHO screwed the pooch on this one?
Hyperboria NEVER existed.
Hyboria did.
AND
You really need to change the names of certain things in the game that are spelled using that gross pooch screw.
Also, the name of Impisi is misspelled (in one instance) during the talk. (it shows up as Impsi).
Hyperborea does exist, it is just a part of Hyboria. The Hyperboreans are considered the ‘Russians’ of Howard’s world. Just look at a map of Hyboria, Hyperborea is east of Nordheim/Cimmeria.
Are you serious?
Damn it. You’re right according to what I just read on the web.
lol
The first time I ever saw “Hyperborea” in an REH novel, I balked. “Hyper” is an adjective I’d usually use to describe children high on sugar, or an FTL sci-fi engine, so I just never could take it seriously in an otherwise gritty fantasy work.
It would be like if one of the countries was name Cyberheim, there would be no way I could take that area seriously. Both sound like something a teenage boy would think was cool while doodling swords in the margin of their notebook during a humanities class. 
Also, Hy-per-bor-E-a…? That’s just way too many syllables to roll off the tongue smoothly. REH is bad and his ghost should feel bad. 
The word “hyper” means nothing more than ‘over’ or ‘above’
The name “Hyperborea” isn’t even Howard’s invention; he borrowed it from Greek mythology. It translates roughly to “beyond the north”.
Maybe in Greek, but that’s certainly not the meaning in English. 
If you knew the books, you would also know that Howard borrowed almost all the races from the real ones. Because he didn’t have to explain a race in detail what the length of his short stories would have blown up for the “Wierd Tales” magazine where he published the most of his storys.
But this sometimes makes it difficult for the fan community to distinguish Howard’s fiction from reality and unfortunately a lot of mistakes are added even though Howard never mentioned it, but we mix it accidently with the real world.
But long story short …
Hyperborea IS Howards invention, but yes the name is borrowed from the greek mythology, but as allways, the comparison with the real one should only give the reader a rough idea of what this race is, but never should the reader think that this is a one to one copy of the real race.
Here, artistic license allows them to be mixed together.
According to dict.leo.org, it is. When you try to translate ‘hyper’ from English to German, the word that Comes up also means ‘over’…
If your argument rests on an English speaker checking a German dictionary for the definition of a word in English, then maybe it isn’t the strongest argument.
Maybe it should have been High Borea. (A spin off of Auroa Borealis , northern lights common in the Northern Hemisphere). Indicating from where they originated.
LOL, Oxford dictionary and the Webster both state that hyper, as you see it, is a clipped version of hyperactive, which, of course, means over-active. And both mark the use of hyper as a standalone word as ‘informal’.
Other uses of the word also show that it still means ‘over’ or ‘above’, as in “hypersonic speed” or “hypersensitivity”.
Had you scrolled down far enough on the webpage of your first link, you’d seen this:
hyper-
prefix
- above, over, or in excess: hypercritical
- (in medicine) denoting an abnormal excess: hyperacidity
- indicating that a chemical compound contains a greater than usual amount of an element: hyperoxide
Basically, if ‘hyper’ stands alone as an adjective, it means what you think it means, because in that case it is just a clipped version of hyperactive.
If hyper is used as a prefix, as in hyperborea, the word that started this thread, it still means ‘over’ or ‘above’.
That it has acquired a new meaning as a standalone word does not mean that it lost its older meaning, which is still in use, obviously (hypersonic speed, hypersensitivity, etc.)
So yes, it does mean what you think, but it also means what I think. The difference is, that it is used as a prefix in the word this thread is about, so here it is not what you think.
And yes, my argument was weak, but thankfully you supplied me with better arguments
The entirety of “Hyperborea” is just a side note in Howard’s essay “The Hyborian Age”. To say he “invented” it is a slight exaggeration, considering he created very little beyond borrowing the name for a country in the north. The same essay basically tells us which real-world peoples acted as inspiration for which Hyborian Age peoples, because in Howard’s fiction, the Hyborian peoples evolved into those real-world counterparts.
Of course, there’s a lot of artistic license used in Howard’s fiction; for example, his Hyborian Picts bore little resemblance to the real-world Scottish Picts (which Howard also describes in his “historical” stories).
So yeah, I know the books.
I’m helpful like that. However, this still doesn’t address my original point (jape really) that it sounds silly and has far too many syllables.
I support this subjective view based on the fact that many of the most common uses of hyper as a prefix (hyperactive, hypersonic, hypersensitive, hyperdrive) are each in their own ways gonzo, over-the-top, or strain one’s patience… much like having to muddle thru the inelegant mouthful that is Hy-per-bor-e-a. Blergh! 
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