Méra means “sea”, and Salaméra means “salt sea”. These are words in the Méri language, an invented language that may have been spoken around 8500 years ago by the first farmers around the Sweet Sea.
At the beginning of In the Day of the Flood, The Sweet Sea was separated from the high Salt Sea by a narrow strip of land near Solaméra, which means “south-sea”. The tiny river Sóla trickled along the wide, dry valley. It was said that a giant had once opened a crack in the world, allowing the salt sea to pour down the valley as a great salt river.
Our name for the Sweet sea would perhaps be “Black sea lake”. Sadly, it is no longer a freshwater lake so now it is simply the “Black Sea”. And the Salt Sea is now called the “Mediterranean” – the “sea at the middle of the world”, connected to the great oceans beyond.
The printed and Kindle versions of In the Day of the Flood include maps of the Black Sea coastline before and after the great flood.