If we take "siswai'aman" as meaning "Spears of the Dragon", we have a conclusion that there is an Old Tongue word for "Dragon", which is peculiar because "Dragon" is a word without meaning for Third Age people, aside from the title of Lews Therin Telamon, who would have obviously borne that title in the Old Tongue. So really, shouldn't "Dragon" already be the Old Tongue word for Dragon? Whence comes this 'aman' then?
Funny too, because I seem to remember that in order to dodge the use of the word "Dragon", dragonflies are called lacewings in The Wheel of Time.
Funny too, because I seem to remember that in order to dodge the use of the word "Dragon", dragonflies are called lacewings in The Wheel of Time.
We might have a clue about this from a Fourth Age cycle of stories (that - so I presume, is one of our sole examples of the "new tongue" in the text rather than transliterated as English. There's little reason to believe a fourth Age text has an Old Tongue title, anyway...) It looks and sounds, of course, very much like the simplified version of the OT the new tongue is supposed to be:
The "Cycle of the Dragon" reads Charal Drianaan te Calamon.
It appears that over the course of millenia, the title of Dragon has evolved from the OT compound Calaman, that is: "red dragon". It's either that, or perhaps more likely, the OT name for Dragon was Calaman, and it's abbreviated into 'aman in a compounded expression like siswai'aman (languages using compounds almost always shorten the root words, otherwise you end up with impossibly long words...).
So, the OT title of LTT was "Aman" or "Calaman", and in the NT the word is "Calamon". The word "te" in the NT has seemingly replaced "an". Either way, Dragon in the NT is still very close to Dragon in the OT. The similarity between aman and calaman and Telamon makes me wonder if the origin of why he got called Dragon isn't in a pun between his honorific and the name of the (no doubt fictional/mythological, and seemingly related to the great serpent) creature dragon.
It becomes more obvious why the Forsaken aren't too mixed up and why the characters can't understand the OT at the same time. The OT used compound words with complex rules of word and sentence formation. The NT has set in stone the old compounds to form a fixed vocabulary, simplified the grammar a lot, and those new words have evolved over time so that many don't follow the compound rules anymore. The Forsaken know the rules of compounding, so it's much easier for them to puzzle out the meaning of the "bastard" words in the NT than for NT speakers to puzzle out how the OT compounds relate to their own vocabulary, especially that they have lost knowledge of many of the "root words", which forcibly (as in all compounded languages) often have a large palette of purely context-based meanings (an example of this is how the root word for "left" and "west" is the same one).
This message last edited by DomA on 18/06/2010 at 06:06:26 PM
Forsaken translations
- 17/06/2010 09:16:36 AM
2674 Views
Yeah...
- 17/06/2010 09:31:15 AM
1919 Views
Semirhage is named as "The Lady of Pain" in KoD, by Rand...
- 17/06/2010 11:14:56 AM
2280 Views
Do Semirhage & Bel'al actually mean those things or are they other nicknames?
- 17/06/2010 11:38:18 AM
1753 Views
Nice ideas!
- 17/06/2010 02:10:43 PM
1728 Views
The beauty of a re-read is that there are so many little gems I'd forgotten
- 17/06/2010 02:48:19 PM
1497 Views
Re: The beauty of a re-read is that there are so many little gems I'd forgotten
- 17/06/2010 04:43:48 PM
1652 Views
Gai'shain = those sworn to peace in battle
- 17/06/2010 09:22:02 PM
1581 Views
Gaidin = Brother to Battle ... which is what I think the OP meant to use
- 17/06/2010 09:32:20 PM
1516 Views
I always thought Lanfear probably translated to something closer to a Moon translation
- 17/06/2010 02:43:04 PM
1821 Views
it's the other way around...
- 17/06/2010 02:58:33 PM
1563 Views
good point
- 17/06/2010 03:13:17 PM
1543 Views
Re: good point
- 17/06/2010 04:05:50 PM
1615 Views
Not to mention she STILL hasn't earned a 3rd (or in 4th) name
- 17/06/2010 04:16:57 PM
1586 Views
What about Cyndane
- 17/06/2010 04:48:03 PM
1505 Views
- 17/06/2010 04:48:03 PM
1505 Views
It must be her favorite one, since it's the only one she actually earned
*NM*
- 17/06/2010 05:43:41 PM
819 Views
*NM*
- 17/06/2010 05:43:41 PM
819 Views
Well she earned Mierin
*NM*
- 17/06/2010 08:27:05 PM
939 Views
*NM*
- 17/06/2010 08:27:05 PM
939 Views
how so? I figured mom and dad gave that one too her
*NM*
- 17/06/2010 08:36:24 PM
845 Views
*NM*
- 17/06/2010 08:36:24 PM
845 Views
she earned it by being born... ha! gotcha
*NM*
- 17/06/2010 08:39:10 PM
807 Views
*NM*
- 17/06/2010 08:39:10 PM
807 Views
HA! But technically I think her mother earned that
*NM*
- 17/06/2010 08:58:30 PM
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*NM*
- 17/06/2010 08:58:30 PM
731 Views
Re: good point
- 17/06/2010 04:47:01 PM
1647 Views
Again, a self-proclaimed ownership aimed at making her seem more impressive
- 17/06/2010 05:55:12 PM
1577 Views
I disagree
- 17/06/2010 06:20:08 PM
1619 Views
Personally I think that order was off the cuff
- 17/06/2010 08:55:28 PM
1734 Views
Re: Personally I think that order was off the cuff
- 17/06/2010 09:02:06 PM
1685 Views
Disagree
- 17/06/2010 09:28:51 PM
1603 Views
Re: Disagree
- 17/06/2010 09:41:23 PM
1579 Views
I'm not being very clear
- 17/06/2010 10:14:10 PM
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Re: I'm not being very clear
- 18/06/2010 08:06:56 AM
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Re: I'm not being very clear
- 18/06/2010 03:33:12 PM
1572 Views
Re: I'm not being very clear
- 18/06/2010 04:35:12 PM
1440 Views
The point isn't if Lanfear has the skill, it's that it was poorly shown.
- 18/06/2010 05:31:11 PM
1601 Views
The statement makes clear that those 6 were all quite impressive
- 17/06/2010 10:51:49 PM
1393 Views
I don't see that bearing out in the text at all
- 17/06/2010 10:57:36 PM
1591 Views
Like Etzel I don't agree
- 17/06/2010 08:30:37 PM
1499 Views
I think she's a weak villain
- 17/06/2010 08:58:01 PM
1470 Views
Re: I think she's a weak villain
- 17/06/2010 09:03:47 PM
1550 Views
and slaughter the Seanchan empress on her own throne thowing the empire into chaos
- 17/06/2010 09:30:27 PM
1592 Views
Semirhage has done more than anyone since Ishy destroyed the Ten Nations
- 18/06/2010 02:06:30 AM
1562 Views
Regarding "Demandred" ...
- 17/06/2010 04:51:43 PM
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I always thought it was a coincidence
- 17/06/2010 08:32:39 PM
1830 Views
Lan/Lanfear isn't a coincidence...
- 18/06/2010 12:19:58 AM
1540 Views
Re: Lan/Lanfear isn't a coincidence...
- 20/06/2010 07:01:55 PM
1635 Views
Perhaps Lan-fear meaning Night-Daughter would make more sense
- 17/06/2010 06:00:35 PM
1604 Views
Re: Perhaps Lan-fear meaning Night-Daughter would make more sense
- 18/06/2010 04:23:38 PM
1806 Views
And Dragon translations...
- 17/06/2010 10:53:02 PM
1714 Views
Re: And Dragon translations...
- 17/06/2010 11:01:25 PM
1524 Views
Why would they call themselves "Spears of the fictional creature"?
- 18/06/2010 12:29:49 AM
1471 Views
It was meant as a joke, but really it could be some generic term rather than meaning
- 18/06/2010 06:00:36 AM
1560 Views
Except that they don't know what a 'Dragon' is, except as it relates to Lews Therin/Rand
- 18/06/2010 05:11:30 PM
1516 Views
like I said, I was just making a joke of it ... you are quite right with "Rand's Spears"
- 18/06/2010 05:32:42 PM
1342 Views
But of course the NT word for Dragon isn't Dragon
- 18/06/2010 05:45:34 PM
1758 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
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"Dragon Wannabe"
*NM*
- 20/06/2010 09:23:09 PM
694 Views
*NM*
- 20/06/2010 09:23:09 PM
694 Views
Lizard? *NM*
- 20/06/2010 10:04:21 PM
880 Views
"Scaled Worm"... though I doubt he'd take that name up in pride
. *NM*
- 22/06/2010 01:23:03 AM
773 Views
. *NM*
- 22/06/2010 01:23:03 AM
773 Views
It's probably too much to attempt to guess at the meanings of words...
- 17/06/2010 10:58:06 PM
1323 Views


*NM*