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Re: Perhaps Lan-fear meaning Night-Daughter would make more sense DomA Send a noteboard - 18/06/2010 04:23:38 PM
The reason why the "lan" syllable in Lanfear is thought to be the one meaning daughter is because Siuan gave Min two aliases meaning daughter this and that, and the common syllable in all three is "la".

So it's possible Lanfear litterally translates as night-daughter, but the word order is different from English, ie: it's rather daugher-night.

Bob's on the right track, I think. It's quite possible the "n" (and "m" in other words, it's probably a matter of phonetics) - it is pronounced with a short or long "am" sound in front of vowels, and with "n" sound in front of consonants, and becomes "an" in full, or "'an" when it's a suffi at the end of syllable within a word mark the possessive and some other uses of "of" (as in "betrayer of Hope), a contraction of "an" used when the compound words are expanded into sentences.

It's as if you wrote "(for the) honor of the red eagle" (carai an caldazzar) as caraincaldazzar, which is probably grammatically incorrect, while compounding la'an'fear into Lanfear, or Sa an ael into Sammael, and Isha an ael into Ishamael and Har an into Haran are all correct, maybe because it's not a phrase but compounded names). In languages that aggregate root words into compounds like this, the rules are often fairly elaborate and not always intuitive to speakers of the family of langagues derived from latin/greek that tend to use suffixes and prefixes more than root words, and when we compound words to form another, they usually use the full words, as in "snowball" for "ball of snow". The rules for compounding roots/root words tend to vary from one level of language to the next, eg: between everyday use versus poetry vs religious use). If someone around know, for example, sanskrit (Fionwe?), he/she could explain it much better than I could.

Where it gets a step more complicated is that where to use "of" or the possessive of the/'s doesn' seem to follow the same grammatical rules as english (it seems the grammatical relationship between "Maidens" and "Spear" in Maidens of the Spear isn't the same as in English. It's tied by something else than "of the" in the OT (the word for that appears to be 'mai, or maybe far): the literal translation may be something like : brides/promised to the spear.

In any case, if we knew for sure which langague(s) Jordan used as model, it'd be a lot easier/safer to bring up theories. All we know is that he didn't make all the rules up, or based them just vaguely on languages like Tolkien. Jordan rather borrowed a grammatical structure from one or more existing languages, then he twisted those rules served him to twist existing and invented words. Tuatha'an, for instance, is a twisting following his OT grammatical rules of Tuatha Dé Danaan. In a lot of cases like this, Jordan "cheated", assigning arbitrary meanings to various syllables to obtain words that are very close to names from mythology and legends, to which he gave a different meaning. Aes Sedai, Asha'man, Sammael, Ishamael, Tuatha'an are all examples of this. In the case of Tuatha'an, the word Tuatha (old Irish) is the plural of Tuath and means "tribe"/"people" (the full expression means The tribes of the Goddess Ana/Ana/Anan/Dana/Danan). Jordan shifted this so "Tu" became his OT word for Travelling/Who travel/nomadic and Atha became people (the final 'an is an OT plural mark). Then he re used the new word "atha" in other situations, forming for instance Athan Miere (he remained Irish for this one, as Miere is Old Irish for Sea... I don't know the grammar, but Sea Folk/Tribes in old Irish could have given Tuatha Dé Miere). The vocabulary and "root words" for the Old Tongue comes from all over the map and eras. Jordan's aim wasn't to create a fictitious language so much as contriving a way to get "twisted" versions of real words to fit his "the wheel turns and the same things come and go" concept. The grammatical framework he imposed for the OT made it more coherent, and, I would guess, made it simpler for him to find ways to twists the words/names he wanted. Sooner or later you run out of inspiration for twisting words while remaining coherent. The basic OT grammar he adopted took care of this for him.
it's not a phrase but compounded names). In languages that aggregate root words into compounds like this, the rules are often fairly elaborate and not always intuitive to speakers of the family of langagues derived from latin/greek that tend to use suffixes and prefixes more than root words, and when we compound words to form another, they usually use the full words, as in "snowball" for "ball of snow". The rules for compounding roots/root words tend to vary from one level of language to the next, eg: between everyday use versus poetry vs religious use). If someone around know, for example, sanskrit (Fionwe?), he/she could explain it much better than I could.

Where it gets a step more complicated is that where to use "of" or the possessive of the/'s doesn' seem to follow the same grammatical rules as english (it seems the grammatical relationship between "Maidens" and "Spear" in Maidens of the Spear isn't the same as in English. It's tied by something else than "of the" in the OT (the word for that appears to be 'mai, or maybe far): the literal translation may be something like : brides/promised to the spear.

In any case, if we knew for sure which langague(s) Jordan used as model, it'd be a lot easier/safer to bring up theories. All we know is that he didn't make all the rules up, or based them just vaguely on languages like Tolkien. Jordan rather borrowed a grammatical structure from one or more existing languages, then he twisted those rules served him to twist existing and invented words. Tuatha'an, for instance, is a twisting following his OT grammatical rules of Tuatha Dé Danaan. In a lot of cases like this, Jordan "cheated", assigning arbitrary meanings to various syllables to obtain words that are very close to names from mythology and legends, to which he gave a different meaning. Aes Sedai, Asha'man, Sammael, Ishamael, Tuatha'an are all examples of this. In the case of Tuatha'an, the word Tuatha (old Irish) is the plural of Tuath and means "tribe"/"people" (the full expression means The tribes of the Goddess Ana/Ana/Anan/Dana/Danan). Jordan shifted this so "Tu" became his OT word for Travelling/Who travel/nomadic and Atha became people (the final 'an is an OT plural mark). Then he re used the new word "atha" in other situations, forming for instance Athan Miere (he remained Irish for this one, as Miere is Old Irish for Sea). The vocabulary and "root words" for the Old Tongue comes from all over the map and eras. Jordan's aim wasn't to create a fictitious language so much as contriving a way to get "twisted" versions of real words to fit his "the wheel turns and the same things come and go" concept. The grammatical framework he imposed for the OT made it more coherent, and, I would guess, made it simpler for him to find ways to twists the words/names he wanted. Sooner or later you run out of inspiration for twisting words while remaining coherent. The basic OT grammar he adopted took care of this for him.
This message last edited by DomA on 18/06/2010 at 04:58:04 PM
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Forsaken translations - 17/06/2010 09:16:36 AM 2389 Views
Yeah... - 17/06/2010 09:31:15 AM 1673 Views
Semirhage is named as "The Lady of Pain" in KoD, by Rand... - 17/06/2010 11:14:56 AM 2020 Views
You are right... - 17/06/2010 11:31:05 AM 1577 Views
Do Semirhage & Bel'al actually mean those things or are they other nicknames? - 17/06/2010 11:38:18 AM 1477 Views
On Be'lal - 17/06/2010 11:42:31 AM 1344 Views
Nice ideas! - 17/06/2010 02:10:43 PM 1475 Views
Gai'shain = those sworn to peace in battle - 17/06/2010 09:22:02 PM 1314 Views
Gaidin = Brother to Battle ... which is what I think the OP meant to use - 17/06/2010 09:32:20 PM 1242 Views
Presumably he meant "Dai Shan", or "Battle Lord", as he said. - 17/06/2010 10:37:07 PM 1319 Views
or that *NM* - 17/06/2010 10:45:49 PM 758 Views
About Aginor - 17/06/2010 12:50:04 PM 1760 Views
Great! - 17/06/2010 02:11:47 PM 1432 Views
Some Old Tongue translations - 17/06/2010 01:34:18 PM 1360 Views
ah Thanks! *NM* - 17/06/2010 02:12:00 PM 771 Views
Good luck with that - 17/06/2010 02:36:36 PM 1391 Views
Re: Good luck with that - 17/06/2010 03:24:52 PM 1266 Views
Very interesting! - 17/06/2010 08:34:36 PM 1351 Views
As always, - 20/06/2010 02:25:07 PM 1238 Views
I always thought Lanfear probably translated to something closer to a Moon translation - 17/06/2010 02:43:04 PM 1543 Views
it's the other way around... - 17/06/2010 02:58:33 PM 1300 Views
good point - 17/06/2010 03:13:17 PM 1301 Views
Re: good point - 17/06/2010 04:05:50 PM 1358 Views
Not to mention she STILL hasn't earned a 3rd (or in 4th) name - 17/06/2010 04:16:57 PM 1332 Views
What about Cyndane - 17/06/2010 04:48:03 PM 1226 Views
It must be her favorite one, since it's the only one she actually earned *NM* - 17/06/2010 05:43:41 PM 684 Views
Well she earned Mierin *NM* - 17/06/2010 08:27:05 PM 829 Views
how so? I figured mom and dad gave that one too her *NM* - 17/06/2010 08:36:24 PM 702 Views
she earned it by being born... ha! gotcha *NM* - 17/06/2010 08:39:10 PM 665 Views
HA! But technically I think her mother earned that *NM* - 17/06/2010 08:58:30 PM 597 Views
well she earned Eronaile by virtue of her genetics *NM* - 17/06/2010 09:04:36 PM 680 Views
Tee hee ... I'd credit her father on that one *NM* - 17/06/2010 09:31:19 PM 726 Views
Re: good point - 17/06/2010 04:47:01 PM 1387 Views
Again, a self-proclaimed ownership aimed at making her seem more impressive - 17/06/2010 05:55:12 PM 1260 Views
I disagree - 17/06/2010 06:20:08 PM 1358 Views
Personally I think that order was off the cuff - 17/06/2010 08:55:28 PM 1492 Views
Re: Personally I think that order was off the cuff - 17/06/2010 09:02:06 PM 1448 Views
Disagree - 17/06/2010 09:28:51 PM 1376 Views
Re: Disagree - 17/06/2010 09:41:23 PM 1317 Views
I'm not being very clear - 17/06/2010 10:14:10 PM 1333 Views
Re: I'm not being very clear - 18/06/2010 08:06:56 AM 3749 Views
Re: I'm not being very clear - 18/06/2010 03:33:12 PM 1334 Views
Re: I'm not being very clear - 18/06/2010 04:35:12 PM 1187 Views
The point isn't if Lanfear has the skill, it's that it was poorly shown. - 18/06/2010 05:31:11 PM 1335 Views
I think it's shown well - 18/06/2010 06:10:55 PM 1492 Views
your own examples show only OP prowess though! - 18/06/2010 06:54:38 PM 1436 Views
How can you say Semirhage didn't achieve anything? - 18/06/2010 01:59:44 AM 1387 Views
I'm partial to Sammael myself. - 18/06/2010 02:24:49 AM 1183 Views
The statement makes clear that those 6 were all quite impressive - 17/06/2010 10:51:49 PM 1142 Views
I don't see that bearing out in the text at all - 17/06/2010 10:57:36 PM 1346 Views
Well, with this point I don't disagree.. *NM* - 17/06/2010 11:10:34 PM 1238 Views
- 17/06/2010 11:12:58 PM 1339 Views
Lanfear's motives were never Shadow-driven - 20/06/2010 06:47:22 PM 1360 Views
not ballsy, just psycho - 20/06/2010 07:25:46 PM 1358 Views
Like Etzel I don't agree - 17/06/2010 08:30:37 PM 1211 Views
I think she's a weak villain - 17/06/2010 08:58:01 PM 1191 Views
Re: I think she's a weak villain - 17/06/2010 09:03:47 PM 1294 Views
Semirhage has done more than anyone since Ishy destroyed the Ten Nations - 18/06/2010 02:06:30 AM 1278 Views
Regarding "Demandred" ... - 17/06/2010 04:51:43 PM 1298 Views
I always thought it was a coincidence - 17/06/2010 08:32:39 PM 1424 Views
Lan/Lanfear isn't a coincidence... - 18/06/2010 12:19:58 AM 1252 Views
Wow. I'm not quite sure where this came from... *NM* - 18/06/2010 05:24:25 PM 667 Views
Re: Lan/Lanfear isn't a coincidence... - 20/06/2010 07:01:55 PM 1400 Views
No, it was supposed to be a joke. - 20/06/2010 07:23:19 PM 1328 Views
Re: No, it was supposed to be a joke. - 21/06/2010 06:36:44 AM 1356 Views
Re: I always thought it was a coincidence - 18/06/2010 05:20:11 PM 1348 Views
Perhaps Lan-fear meaning Night-Daughter would make more sense - 17/06/2010 06:00:35 PM 1315 Views
Interesting *NM* - 17/06/2010 08:33:03 PM 755 Views
Re: Perhaps Lan-fear meaning Night-Daughter would make more sense - 18/06/2010 04:23:38 PM 1526 Views
Regarding "Far Dareis Mai" ... - 18/06/2010 05:28:41 PM 1244 Views
We also have din in Mera'din/Brotherless and far in Far Madding - 18/06/2010 08:16:14 PM 1346 Views
Re: Regarding "Far Dareis Mai" ... - 20/06/2010 03:56:38 AM 1492 Views
And Dragon translations... - 17/06/2010 10:53:02 PM 1423 Views
Re: And Dragon translations... - 17/06/2010 11:01:25 PM 1278 Views
But of course the NT word for Dragon isn't Dragon - 18/06/2010 05:45:34 PM 1493 Views
Ah yes, that sounds reasonable. *NM* - 18/06/2010 08:28:54 PM 716 Views
If "aman" is the Old Tongue name for Dragon, maybe "DEMANdred" contains a reference to Dragon too... - 20/06/2010 08:13:35 PM 1521 Views
"Dragon Wannabe" *NM* - 20/06/2010 09:23:09 PM 555 Views
Lizard? *NM* - 20/06/2010 10:04:21 PM 728 Views
"Scaled Worm"... though I doubt he'd take that name up in pride . *NM* - 22/06/2010 01:23:03 AM 649 Views
It's probably too much to attempt to guess at the meanings of words... - 17/06/2010 10:58:06 PM 1069 Views
A nice article about the Old Tongue and my ramblings - 18/06/2010 11:14:24 AM 7486 Views

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