Rosharan Linguistics

[Renarin Kholin]

I recently came across this WoB, and as I am currently studying linguistics, I decided to see what insights into the history of Roshar could be gained by analyzing the language families present.

Quote

IneptProfessional

Since you mention languages on Roshar, are there any languages that are completely unrelated to any other on the planet?

Brandon Sanderson

Our basic language families are:

Vorin: Alethi, Veden, Herdazian, and more distantly Thaylen. Natan is close to dead, but shares a root, and Karbranthian is basically a dialect. Other minor languages like Bav are in here.

Makabaki: Azish is king here, and most of the languages around split off this. There are around thirty of these.

Dawnate: A varied language family with distant roots in the dawnchant. Shin, parshendi, Horneater. They share grammar, but they diverged long enough ago that the vocabulary is very different.

Iri: Iriali, Reshi, Purelake dialects, Riran, and some surrounding languages.

Aimian: These two are lumped together, but are very different. Probably what you were looking for.

That isn't counting spren languages, of course. I might have missed something. Typing on my phone without my wiki handy.

First off, I would love to see Brandon's wiki someday, though it doesn't seem likely at least until he finishes writing everything he has planned for the Cosmere.

Comparing the modern Roshar map and the Silver Kingdoms Epoch map, we can see that the following silver kingdoms adopted which languages: 

• Vorin: Rishir, Valhav, Alethela, Natanatan, Thalath 
• Makabaki: Makabakam 
• Iri: Iri, Sela Tales 
• Aimian: Aimia 
• Dawnate: Shin Kak Nish, Valhav (Horneater Peaks)

Makabaki is very straightforward. All humans in that part of the world started in one place with one language. Evidently, the Makabaki people did not extensively travel to or trade with other regions of the world in early history, since their language family is confined to that silver kingdom. The population grew, and they started to spread. As they grew farther apart, communications between the various regions decreased, and eventually the dialects became distinct languages. Basic evolution of language. I would be interested to know which languages in this region are not of Makabaki descent, since Brandon did say "most" of the languages split off that.

Iri is spoken in a part of the world where we have seen very little so far, so this is particularly insightful. The fact that Reshi is part of this language family is especially telling. There must have been extensive sea travel between Iri and the Reshi Isles in early post-Recreance. Whether the Iri people still travel the seas and the Reshi Isles as extensively as they once did is unknown, but I would venture to say that at one point in history at least, Iri and Riran sailors and ships would have rivaled and probably beat the Thaylens.

I had trouble placing Tu Bayla, since we don't know a lot about it and it doesn't seem to quite fit regionally with any of the others. It does border the Purelake, which suggested it could be in the Iri family, but that wasn't enough for me. The short words in front of names (TU Bayla, RU Parat - see the map) seemed similar to a few different things. First off, Tu Fallia, a region separated from Tu Bayla by a mountain range. The exact same word, Tu, seems to suggest a similar background, but I think this may be coincidental. Geographically, there is not much reason to suggest a connection between the two. The closest I came to finding a connection between the two is the silver kingdom Valhav. Valhav almost contained both Tu Bayla and Tu Fallia, but Tu Fallia is just outside its borders, inside Makabakam.

I found other linguistic similarities in Jah Keved and the Purelake. For one thing, the word Jah - a short word included at the start of the nation's name. Similarly, the titles that signify the birth order of sons in Veden culture: NAN Balat, TET Wikim, ASHA Jushu. In the Purelake, the gods NU Ralik and VUN Makak, as well as their villages FU Abra, FU Namir, FU Albast, and FU Moorin. My conclusion - those prefixes are a remnant of the Silver Kingdom Valhav, manifested in the various languages of those places. Valhav included Tu Bayla, much of Jah Keved, and bordered the Purelake and Tu Fallia. So what language is spoken in Tu Bayla? Most likely something from the Iri family, with remnants of the ancient language of Valhav.

Aimian is a tricky one. Some people use it as evidence that Aimians are not native to Roshar, and that could very well be true, but I don't think there is enough linguistic evidence to prove that. Brandon's wording is a better hint than the languages themselves. It makes sense that the island nation would have a separate language family of its own.

Vorin is an odd case. Geographically, it occupies the largest area by far, with much less variation than would be expected. Thaylen is obviously more distantly related since it is an island nation. There is no evidence that Jah Keved hasn't been one nation for thousands of years, so it is feasible that Jah Keved could be united under one language, with regional dialects of course. My main questions concerning the Vorin languages are about Kharbranthian and Alethi. Kharbranthian is "basically a dialect," but a dialect of which Vorin language? I think we can quickly rule out Herdazian and Bav purely on a geographical basis. Though Kharbranth is located in the Frostlands, what anciently was Natanatan, I think it is unlikely that Kharbranthian is a dialect of Natan. If Kharbranthian is still "basically a dialect," then it split off of another language fairly recently, and since Natan is close to dead, it doesn't seem to fit. Thaylen seems like the obvious choice, since it is geographically close, but there is a glaring problem with that. To quote Shallan,

Quote

"I can speak your native Alethi, obviously. I have a passable reading knowledge of Thaylen and good spoken Azish. I can make myself understood in Selay, but not read it." (WoK, ch. 5)

Shallan cannot speak Thaylen, yet she was capable of speaking with people in Kharbranth just fine. That leaves Veden or Alethi. (Shallan doesn't say so to Jasnah, but I assume she can speak Veden. After all, she does say your native Alethi, which implies that it is not Shallan's native language.) Since Kharbranth is geographically closer to Jah Keved than Alethkar, I would guess that Kharbranthian is a dialect of Veden, but that is just an educated guess.

Alethkar was divided into different warring princedoms for much of its history. Logically, each princedom would have developed its own language, yet we see that they all share the Alethi language. My theory about why this is is that when Sadees, the Sunmaker, united Alethkar, he established the language of his princedom as the official language of Alethkar. Not enough time passed between his conquest and Gavilar's for the language to change more than developing different dialects.

As for the Dawnate languages, these are descended from the dawnchant. These are mostly isolated groups of people (Shin, Horneaters, parshendi), and they must have been isolated since ancient times. Of course the parshendi language is descended from the ancient singers' language. The Horneaters must have been isolated in the Horneater Peaks since around the time of or even before the Recreance, I would guess. The truly surprising language in this category is Shin. Shinovar was the original home given to the humans when they came to Roshar. I would have expected they would have brought their own language, not adopted a dawnchant-based language. I don't know why Shin is dawnchant-based; I would love to hear ideas about this in the comments.

[Gilphon]

To me, the biggest linguistic puzzle is 'what language were the humans who came from Ashyn speaking? And why is Shin Dawnate instead of being a relative of whatever language that was?'

Like, if you look at the names of the Heralds, the linguistics seem like they match the Vorin languages most closely. But that's based on the wrong end of the continent. It's tempting to think it may have been the Makabaki parent language, but that doesn't resemble the names of the Herald at all. And surely the Iri parent language is what the Iriali were speaking when they arrive; so it must post-date the Ashynites. Which leaves Aimian, which also seems ridiculous. And none of that does anything to explain why the Shin adopted the Dawnchant. 

Also- it's odd that Herdazian and Reshi are in different families, given that both peoples are surely descendant from Rishir. I suppose they must have a lot more contact with Jah Keved and Alethkar in modern times than they do with the Reshi- and perhaps it's a place where the language families kind of cross over.

[DiePie]

To me it makes the most sense that the Humans from Ashyn either a. spoke dawnchant or some variant or b. started speeking dawnchant when they emmigrated to Roshar since that is what the majority (singer) population spoke. Then after a number of desolations (after which society basically collapsed), and thousands of years all but the most isolated parts of Roshar held on to those same dawnate roots. As society collapsed again and again (and communication between areas practically disappeared for generations at a time), these places developed differing languages to each other. English for example has changed immensely in 1000 years, and that's without 90% of everyone dying out every few centuries.

As for Vorin, it would make sense for the Hierocracy (and later the Sunmaker… Or any other Empire that came out of the region) to enforce a single language throughout their empires to help centralize their empires and make them more culturally hegemonous.

[+asmodeus]

Pretty cool and detailed take.

All of this gets only gets weirder considering the names of the Heralds, and the concept of symmetry, because that symmetry has been intrinsically tied to the way people use words and how they write them. How and from where did that veneration to symmetry come about?

It's not present in the Singer names - Eshonai, Venli, Rlain are modern and don't seem to have been affected, but Leshvi, Moash, Vyre, etc. aren't either. That makes it seem that the veneration to symmetry isn't native to Roshar, because some Herald names are very symmetric - Kalak, Shalash. Pailiah even has the "h" substitution. Others are only some way symmetric - Vedel, Chanarach, Battar, to an extent even Talenel. And then yet others are completely non-symmetric - Jezrein, Nale, Ishar.

This starts getting weirder once you include the Unmade. Dalinar, Renarin, Amaram, Adolin, and the moon Mishim all seem to share roots with Ba-Ado-Mishram, Yelig-nar and Re-Shephir. Shalash possibly shares a root with Ashertmarn. But then you have the Kai-Garnis : Dai-Gonarthis similarity, and a possible Moash : Chemoarish (Moshe means son in Hebrew, and Chemoarish is known as the Dustmother) connection, and the interplay just gets deeper.

[Bookish Ocelot]

On 3/23/2020 at 1:22 AM, asmodeus said:

Pretty cool and detailed take.

All of this gets only gets weirder considering the names of the Heralds, and the concept of symmetry, because that symmetry has been intrinsically tied to the way people use words and how they write them. How and from where did that veneration to symmetry come about?

It's not present in the Singer names - Eshonai, Venli, Rlain are modern and don't seem to have been affected, but Leshvi, Moash, Vyre, etc. aren't either. That makes it seem that the veneration to symmetry isn't native to Roshar, because some Herald names are very symmetric - Kalak, Shalash. Pailiah even has the "h" substitution. Others are only some way symmetric - Vedel, Chanarach, Battar, to an extent even Talenel. And then yet others are completely non-symmetric - Jezrein, Nale, Ishar.

This starts getting weirder once you include the Unmade. Dalinar, Renarin, Amaram, Adolin, and the moon Mishim all seem to share roots with Ba-Ado-Mishram, Yelig-nar and Re-Shephir. Shalash possibly shares a root with Ashertmarn. But then you have the Kai-Garnis : Dai-Gonarthis similarity, and a possible Moash : Chemoarish (Moshe means son in Hebrew, and Chemoarish is known as the Dustmother) connection, and the interplay just gets deeper.

Jezrerien is the shorter form of Jezerezeh (the proper Alethi symmetric form). Nale -> Nalan. Talenel -> Talenelat. Ishar -> Ishi. Vedel -> Vedeledev. Alll of these are canon, IIRC.

I think part of the reason for the shortenings is that different languages have different names - like Russian 'Sasha' for the English 'Alexander'. A better example might be 'Anthony' in English and 'Antonio' in Spanish. A lot of the names are unsymmetric intentionally because symmetry is reserved for the heralds - that's why Shallan has an n instead of an 'sh' at the end of her name. The suffixes 'din' 'lin' and 'rin' all mean child of - or at least some thing along those lines. Kaladin's name simplifies to 'Kala' which is near-symmetric. Renarin's name boils down to 'Renar'. Adolin becomes 'ado' which has a suspicious correspondence to an Aon. 

[Renarin Kholin]

3 hours ago, Bookish Ocelot said:

Jezrerien is the shorter form of Jezerezeh (the proper Alethi symmetric form). Nale -> Nalan. Talenel -> Talenelat. Ishar -> Ishi. Vedel -> Vedeledev. Alll of these are canon, IIRC.

In the Prelude to the Stormlight Archive, the heralds are referred to as Jezrien and Talenel, which I assume means that those were their real names. I assume that Alethi ardents at one point decided that symmetry was holy and changed the names of the heralds to meet their standard of holiness.

[Gilphon]

Mhm. There a few cases that make that very clear- Vedeledev is clearly just a bunch of extra letters haphazardly tacked onto the end of Vedel, Jezrien has an entire morpheme that's not present in Jezerezeh, so that doesn't make any sense as a nickname, and and the prelude they're clearly talking about Talenel as the full name and Taln as the nickname; they wouldn't nickname him twice and just not think of his full name at all, surely. And Ishar, which is the name the other Heralds call him, is actually longer than Ishi, so surely the symmetric form is the nickname if anything. 

It's a thing the Vorin do all the time- see also them just kind of inventing the name Nohadon out of whole cloth so they could claim the writer of Way of Kings had a symmetrical name. And deciding that any letter you want can be pronounced as 'h' so that they can write Honor in a symmetrical way. 

[Bookish Ocelot]

16 minutes ago, Renarin Kholin said:

In the Prelude to the Stormlight Archive, the heralds are referred to as Jezrien and Talenel, which I assume means that those were their real names. I assume that Alethi ardents at one point decided that symmetry was holy and changed the names of the heralds to meet their standard of holiness.

 

Just now, Gilphon said:

Mhm. There a few cases that make that very clear- Vedeledev is clearly just a bunch of extra letters haphazardly tacked onto the end of Vedel, Jezrien has an entire morpheme that's not present in Jezerezeh, so that doesn't make any sense as a nickname, and and the prelude they're clearly talking about Talenel as the full name and Taln as the nickname; they wouldn't nickname him twice and just not think of his full name at all, surely. And Ishar, which is the name the other Heralds call him, is actually longer than Ishi, so surely the symmetric form is the nickname if anything. 

It's a thing the Vorin do all the time- see also them just kind of inventing the name Nohadon out of whole cloth so they could claim the writer of Way of Kings had a symmetrical name. And deciding that any letter you want can be pronounced as 'h' so that they can write Honor in a symmetrical way. 

Sorry. I worded my post badly. What I meant to say is that the symmetrical names are not the actual names, but ones the Vorin created to fit their ideals/language. Think about "Saint Anthony" in English versus "Santa Antonio" in Spanish. Or any of a million variations on names from any language. People change names all the time so they fit in better with a language. This is especially common with the names of biblical figures - Mary -> Maria, John/Jean/Sean, etc. 

[+asmodeus]

15 hours ago, Bookish Ocelot said:

Jezrerien is the shorter form of Jezerezeh (the proper Alethi symmetric form). Nale -> Nalan. Talenel -> Talenelat. Ishar -> Ishi. Vedel -> Vedeledev. Alll of these are canon, IIRC.

I think part of the reason for the shortenings is that different languages have different names - like Russian 'Sasha' for the English 'Alexander'. A better example might be 'Anthony' in English and 'Antonio' in Spanish. A lot of the names are unsymmetric intentionally because symmetry is reserved for the heralds - that's why Shallan has an n instead of an 'sh' at the end of her name. The suffixes 'din' 'lin' and 'rin' all mean child of - or at least some thing along those lines. Kaladin's name simplifies to 'Kala' which is near-symmetric. Renarin's name boils down to 'Renar'. Adolin becomes 'ado' which has a suspicious correspondence to an Aon. 

I know this isn't the point of your post, but we know where the "-in" comes from. Here's it, from the naming of Renarin in Oathbringer, Chapter 52:

Spoiler

“Renarin?” Dalinar said, trying to work out the name. He hadn’t picked that. “Rekher … no, Re…”

“Re,” Evi said. “From my language. Nar, after his father. In, to be born unto.”

Stormfather, that was a butchering of the language. Dalinar fumbled, trying to work through it. Nar meant “like unto.”

“What does ‘Re’ mean in your language?” Dalinar asked, scratching his face.

“It has no meaning,” Evi said. “It is simply the name. It means our son’s name, or him.”

Dalinar groaned softly. So the child’s name was “Like one who was born unto himself.” Delightful.

11 hours ago, Bookish Ocelot said:

Sorry. I worded my post badly. What I meant to say is that the symmetrical names are not the actual names, but ones the Vorin created to fit their ideals/language. Think about "Saint Anthony" in English versus "Santa Antonio" in Spanish. Or any of a million variations on names from any language. People change names all the time so they fit in better with a language. This is especially common with the names of biblical figures - Mary -> Maria, John/Jean/Sean, etc. 

That was my point. Their original names fall under three categories of symmetry. 

We do actually have a pretty solid idea of what their original names should be - Argent asked Brandon about this, and we have a full WoB. It comes with all the usual disclaimers about WoBs, but still:

Quote

Argent

Can you confirm the real names of the Heralds for me? I have Jezrien (ˈjɛzɹən), Nale (for Nalan) - is that right?

Brandon Sanderson

Nale (neil) is what-- Nale is, yes, yes.

Argent

Chana [pronounced Shana] or Chana...

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah.

Argent

Vedel.

Brandon Sanderson

Vedel (vəˈdɛl), yeah. Chana (ˈt͡ʃænə) is also called Chanarach (ˈt͡ʃænəɹæt͡ʃ). Either one would be alright.

Argent

Okay, but her birth name...

Brandon Sanderson

Probably-- I think Chanarach is actually her birth name and Chana is the nickname.

Argent

Vedel... Pali, for Pailiah?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, I think Pali (ˈpæli) is the nickname in that case.

Argent

Okay, Ash?

Brandon Sanderson

No, that's a nickname.

Argent

What's the real one?

Brandon Sanderson

Shalash (ʃəˈlɑʃ).

Argent

That's not he just the Vorin...

Brandon Sanderson

No, that one was actually symmetrical.

Argent

Awesome. Battar (bəˈtɑɹ)?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Argent

Kalak?

Brandon Sanderson

Kalak (kəˈlɑk), yes.

Argent

Talenel (tæləˈnɛl), with a nickname Taln (tæln)?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Argent

And Ishar (ɪˈʃɑɹ)?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Words of Radiance Chicago signing (March 22, 2014)

 

Edited March 25, 2020 by asmodeus

[+Oltux72]

On 22/03/2020 at 7:07 AM, Gilphon said:

To me, the biggest linguistic puzzle is 'what language were the humans who came from Ashyn speaking? And why is Shin Dawnate instead of being a relative of whatever language that was?'

The unspoken assumption behind that is that Shinovar never suffered a language shift. This need not be true. For all we know it may have been occupied by Singers, who imposed their language at one period. The history of Roshar is long.
Secondly the assumption that Ashyn was linguistically uniform at the time of the exodus is questionable. In fact if they ruined their world in a war, the possibility that they spoke multiple languages looks more plausible to me.

[+asmodeus]

On 3/28/2020 at 5:46 PM, Oltux72 said:

The unspoken assumption behind that is that Shinovar never suffered a language shift. This need not be true. For all we know it may have been occupied by Singers, who imposed their language at one period. The history of Roshar is long.
Secondly the assumption that Ashyn was linguistically uniform at the time of the exodus is questionable. In fact if they ruined their world in a war, the possibility that they spoke multiple languages looks more plausible to me.

The question is not what and how many baguettes they spoke. The dilemma is, if Humans from Ashyn brought their languages with them, where are they?

Edit: Dammit swipe-typing. Screw it, that stays.

Edited March 29, 2020 by asmodeus

[teknopathetic]

Applied Linguist here:

Assuming Brandon is using language family correctly (and he doesn't mean sub-family), it makes NO sense that the Shin would speak a language in the Dawnate language family unless some real weird power relations went on.

From what we know, AySHIN people land in the east, and within 1 lifetime (the heralds all came from Ashyen), we get our first human-caused desolation and the creation of the Heralds. With this near instant division, it is quite unlikely for the Ashyen refugees to adopt a Parshendi language unless the Ashyen refugees were being culturally dominated by the Parshendi and forced to learn the Dawnate languages. This is even more unlikely since we know the humans were originally hidden away on the western coast far from Parshendi influence. With the war, it seems unlikely that humans would adopt Dawnate in speaking, though adopting the writing system is far more reasonable like with what Japanese and Korean did with Chinese. Humans were likely to read about their new land, but it seems unlikely they would speak to one another in an adopted tongue in under 70 years. It is possible, but unlikely.

One possibility is that the people in the Shin lands sided with Odium and teamed up with the Parshendi (cultural influence eroding their original language in the Shin lands), while the other humans fled east and retained the roots of their Ashyen language. This too is problematic, as the only evidence we have of an entire cultural group working with Odium (outside of individuals from visions) is Thaylena's Passion's which could be a remnant of that Kingdom working for Odium in the past. As well, the Shin currently seem extremely devoted to following Cultivation (as far as we can tell), which would mean the Shin had to switch sides several times in order to have developed this linguistic anomaly. Possible, but obtuse. 

Also, the desolations. Surely the humans hadn't migrated across the entire continent in 70 years. So as desolations occurred, humans began to move out further and further and take over Parshendi lands (we know Kolinar was once Parshendi) and began spreading the Ashyen Refugee culture while perhaps trading with Parshendi and adopting Parshendi technology, words, and grammars. We even get interbreeding with Horneaters and Herdazians (and perhaps creoles that cause Ayshenate to mingle with Dawnate). But this isn't what happened! The people who moved out East don't speak Dawnate! It was the ones with less contact that speak Dawnate for gods know whatever reason. 

Perhaps the Parshendi did not have a spoken language (songs were good enough) and the Parshendi adopted Dawnate as a new form of technology. The Parshendi seem to possess linguistic abilities that allow them to pick up languages faster, and technological advances tend to spur language migration. However,there is so little time for for the Fused to have adopted a human language for personal use when there were few economic or cultural reasons to do so once the war started.  It appears neither side was subjected and forced into cultural submission until the end, and bi-partisan trade also seems quite unlikely due to the existence of the Oathgates and the fact Fused return to Damnation after a defeat. This is also unlikely since the earliest translated Dawnate texts are from a Parshendi POV, which lead us to believe Dawnate to be a Parshendi language. 

Then we have all other humans speaking entirely different language families further out West, where they should really all be traceable back to what the Shin spoke, minus some possible weirdness due to other populations immigrating (Iriali, and possibly Thaylen due to their suspiciously different physical traits). Did the Ayshenate refugee expansion lead to intermixing with other refugee languages from off-world, or did the people who left the Shin lands retain their original Ashyen languages while the people of Shin were influenced by Dawnate? What happened?!?!

I am very curious to know if the Dawnshards were brought from Ayshen (since the humans destroyed their planet somehow), or if the Dawnshards are from Roshar. Knowing where those came from might tell us where the Dawnate language comes from originally. 

Edited March 30, 2020 by teknopathetic

[ftl]

On 3/24/2020 at 10:50 AM, Gilphon said:

 And deciding that any letter you want can be pronounced as 'h' so that they can write Honor in a symmetrical way. 

Oh, wow, that makes so much sense, and I never realized it! They had to pretend "H" is a wildcard so "Honor" would be fake-symmetric!

That's such a neat idea.

[+Oltux72]

9 hours ago, asmodeus said:

The question is not what and how many baguettes they spoke. The dilemma is, if Humans from Ashyn brought their languages with them, where are they?

Lost. The history of Roshar is long enough for that. It is entirely possible that we can reconstruct only back to the Silver Kingdoms.

8 hours ago, teknopathetic said:

Assuming Brandon is using language family correctly (and he doesn't mean sub-family), it makes NO sense that the Shin would speak a language in the Dawnate language family unless some real weird power relations went on.

Again using the assumption that the settlers spoke one language. I give you another scenario. The Ashynites arrived, could not speak to each other, needed a trade language and took over Dawnese as a trade language among each other, as they needed it for trade anyway..

8 hours ago, teknopathetic said:

From what we know, AySHIN people land in the east, and within 1 lifetime (the heralds all came from Ashyen), we get our first human-caused desolation and the creation of the Heralds.

How long did users of Ashin magic live?

And we are talking about a place name. They live longer than languages.

8 hours ago, teknopathetic said:

Also, the desolations. Surely the humans hadn't migrated across the entire continent in 70 years. So as desolations occurred, humans began to move out further and further and take over Parshendi lands (we know Kolinar was once Parshendi) and began spreading the Ashyen Refugee culture while perhaps trading with Parshendi and adopting Parshendi technology, words, and grammars. We even get interbreeding with Horneaters and Herdazians (and perhaps creoles that cause Ayshenate to mingle with Dawnate). But this isn't what happened! The people who moved out East don't speak Dawnate! It was the ones with less contact that speak Dawnate for gods know whatever reason.

They moved out in ethnically distinct groups keeping their language. The mixed group in the old country abandoned their plethora of languages in favor of a trade language. Emmigrants are usually more conservative.

 

[Subvisual Haze]

My guess: the Veden, Makabaki and Shinovar culture/language groups were all distinct exile groups from Ashyn.  They differ in general physical appearance as well as language from one another.  The Heralds themselves are a bit of a clue, as they themselves were refugees from Ashyn and they have a mix of skin tones and eye shapes that can variably lead to them being grouped in either of the above 3 when viewed by other pov characters. My guess is that the 3 groups may have represented 3 distinct languages/cultures on Ashyn, and the Vedens/Makabaki brought their distinct languages with them to Roshar seeding the current language families.

The Shin are distinct in that their cultural taboos seem to be at least partially based on the past knowledge that they were refugees and "guests" on Roshar.  Their prohibition on stepping on stone seems originally intended to keep them from expanding beyond the soil-based Shinovar that was granted to them as a new home by the native Singers.  Similarly I suspect that the Shin language being in the Dawnchant language group was intended as a sign of respect offered by the original Shin people: attempting to adopt the written language of their new "hosts" instead of continuing to use their original Ashyn language.

The other cultural groups in the Dawnchant family are parshendi (I suspect Dawnchant was originally the Singer language), and Horneaters (who are a genetic mix of human and Singer genetics, likely inhereting their Dawnchant language from their Singer ancestoral roots).

The Iri seem to be their own distinct exile group that probably settled the Northwest region of Roshar at some point well after Ashyn's destruction.  They have such distinct physical features that don't seem to be present in any of the Heralds (so far), and they have cultural/religious traditions that also seem to suggest they are a very distinct group.

The Aimians are also another group apart, although whether they are original inhabitants of Roshar like the Singers or yet another later migratory group is still an open question.

[teknopathetic]

On 2020-03-30 at 3:02 AM, Oltux72 said:

Again using the assumption that the settlers spoke one language. I give you another scenario. The Ashynites arrived, could not speak to each other, needed a trade language and took over Dawnese as a trade language among each other, as they needed it for trade anyway..

Perhaps the survivors spoke different languages and different groups went different ways. I hadn't considered a world-builder to think of this, but good point. But this doesn't explain why the Vorin language would still use Axehound for something that would clearly have a Parshendi name. The Vorin language should have had more exposure and need for trade than the Shin language (expansion), but that's not the case. It is explicitly not the case when "axe hound" is noted by Wit.  So while interesting, the theory of multiple languages landing in the Shin lands doesn't explain the discrepancy pattern. 

We know Ashe was born very close to the time of the explosion, and Ashe appears to be 30 years old max, so that really limits our timeline. Maybe Ashyen people lived 300 years, but then why do people now only like 80 or so? And maybe the heralds (most of them) did have investiture from Ashyen that kept them alive longer, but we also have no reason to believe that either. All we know is that Ashe was born very close to the migration (WOB says Brandon isn't sure if she was born before or after), and that means all of this likely went down very quickly. 

An isolated pocket of humanity likely wouldn't learn Parshendi in under 30 years, and would not be super inclined to learn it once the wars started and the Heralds became figureheads. Perhaps there was a LONG gap between the first few desolations and the humans relied on the Parshendi for economic support, but that doesn't hold.  The Vorin language, which expanded east, would have had to assimilate more aspects of Dawnate as the exansion would directly place this Ashyenate language in direct trade contact with Dawnate. It shouldn't be the culturally established and geographically isolated Shin region in the west that absorbs the foriegn language  (as a balance of probabilities). 

Again, we know almost nothing and I don't think anything is wrong. All I am saying is the evidence points to something extreme happening, like the Shin fell to the Parshendi in the past as the Vorin Language groups held on and resisted as they spread East. But this too is problematic as we have an Oathgate in Shin territory.... It just goes on and on. 

 

Edited April 3, 2020 by teknopathetic

[+Oltux72]

8 hours ago, teknopathetic said:

Perhaps the survivors spoke different languages and different groups went different ways. I hadn't considered a world-builder to think of this, but good point. But this doesn't explain why the Vorin language would still use Axehound for something that would clearly have a Parshendi name.

The Parshendi may not have used them as pets. Or pets in general for that matter.

And the relations between the proto-Vorins and the Singers may have been quite hostile. They just may not have wanted to use their word.

8 hours ago, teknopathetic said:

We know Ashe was born very close to the time of the explosion, and Ashe appears to be 30 years old max, so that really limits our timeline. Maybe Ashyen people lived 300 years, but then why do people now only like 80 or so?

Worldhoppers live longer. The future heralds may just have been Ashynite worldhoppers.

8 hours ago, teknopathetic said:

And maybe the heralds (most of them) did have investiture from Ashyen that kept them alive longer, but we also have no reason to believe that either. All we know is that Ashe was born very close to the migration (WOB says Brandon isn't sure if she was born before or after), and that means all of this likely went down very quickly.

That raises a question. Were the heralds originally traitors? That is, did they go over to Honor's side before mankind on Roshar did in general? Did Honor strike first and Odium reacted?

 

[teknopathetic]

15 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

Worldhoppers live longer. The future heralds may just have been Ashynite worldhoppers.

I think this has more to do with time dilation between moving large distance, but Ashyen is basically next door so no such dilation would occur. 

[+Oltux72]

23 hours ago, teknopathetic said:

I think this has more to do with time dilation between moving large distance, but Ashyen is basically next door so no such dilation would occur. 

It would be a rather unlikely for the Ashynites to discover the CR right at the time they needed to escape and if they discovered it to not use it to explore beyond their own star system.

[teknopathetic]

51 minutes ago, Oltux72 said:

It would be a rather unlikely for the Ashynites to discover the CR right at the time they needed to escape and if they discovered it to not use it to explore beyond their own star system.

Well we don't really know anything about the people or culture back then, so who knows what happened? Maybe Honour just opened a portal, or Odium did to stress out Honour,  or maybe they had been using Ashyen surges to travel already (we know they had a variant). 

Edited April 1, 2020 by teknopathetic

[Could Be Fire]

There's definitely something up with Shinovar from a linguistic-cultural standpoint. It's all just muddled by the fact that the timeline makes it very unclear when they're were isolated and how much interaction they had with other Rosharan cultures (both human and listener).

They're extremely isolated in modern-day Roshar. So much so that nobody even knows what their political system is. However, in the past, they've head at least one Ghengis Khan style conquerer that used Shardblades/surge, they were part of the Silver Kingdoms, and we have Shin Knight Radients in the Gem Archives. 

The fact they're so phenotypically distinct from other Rosharans is hard to fit in the timeline. Either sometime right before their current isolationary period (Shamanate rule), their population was cut to almost nothing for founder effect genetics. Or sometime in early Rosharan history, they were super isolated from the rest of Roshar (they're implied to be one of the few human ethnic groups who haven't mixed with Listeners).

My guess is that the Shinovar we see in the story is descended from the original Ashynites who kept the listener's agreement to not expand beyond the Mountains. Either actually direct descent of a continuous culture for the whole history or at some point they found out the true history (eila stele style) and decided to follow their ancient promises (don't cross the mountains, don't use stormlight, etc.) the best they could.