You hurt THEM enough.

[+Oltux72]

Quote

They are not with us.
...
No! Leave them alone. You hurt them enough.

When I first read this I assumed the Stormfather was refering to the Sibling and the Nightwatcher. This makes no sense. The Sibling by themselves is a plural entity. The Sibling is a hive mind, consisting of sleeping members. The Sibling does not need to be found. It was in plain sight all the time. Navani has seen them, but not identified them. The Soulcasters collectively are the hive mind that makes up the Sibling.

Burn this speculation down!

[Chiberty]

Presumably, this is why it was worded that way:

Quote

UppityDarkeyes

Would you be willing to confirm that the use of 'they' pronouns for the Sibling is because the Sibling is non-binary? Since apparently some people are confused on this point.

Brandon Sanderson

The sibling did not view themselves as male or female. (And considered it odd that so many spren would adopt human genders.)

Skyward Pre-Release AMA (Nov. 3, 2018)

 

[Subvisual Haze]

1 hour ago, Oltux72 said:

When I first read this I assumed the Stormfather was refering to the Sibling and the Nightwatcher. This makes no sense. The Sibling by themselves is a plural entity. The Sibling is a hive mind, consisting of sleeping members. The Sibling does not need to be found. It was in plain sight all the time. Navani has seen them, but not identified them. The Soulcasters collectively are the hive mind that makes up the Sibling.

Burn this speculation down!

It would be interesting to see how "them" is translated into other languages.  The ambiguity here derives from English specifically using the same pronoun for 3rd person gender neutral singular, and 3rd person plural.

[Innovation]

I personally think it means “you (a Bondsmith) hurt (broke their oaths with the Sibling prior to the Recreance) them (the Sibling) enough.”

[Master Silver]

Question: If the Sibling collectively is all the Fabrials, with let's say the Queen Bee (for lack of a better term) being at Urithiru, and the Sibling is sleeping, what would the Fabrials do if they were awake?? Is this the tech boom that happens in Rhythms of War?

 

Not to double post, but just had a (in my mind) brilliant theory. What if upon swearing the fifth idea the Radiant Spren gains a little sibling (almost in the same way that Radiants gain Squires) which manifests in the physical realm as a Soulcaster. Bear with me. This companion spren, learns from the main Radiant spren, who is rightly considered a master for guiding their human to the fifth ideal. When their human dies, which is still likely traumatic, the sibling (or squire radiant spren) can then go and form their own bond with a human, having learned from a master Radiant spren. Somehow, what we call the Sibling makes this bond possible and along with the main or master radiant spren helps guide the young/child spren

[Greywatch]

In the future, you can edit your post to add on to what you had before.

[+Bzhydack]

23 hours ago, Subvisual Haze said:

It would be interesting to see how "them" is translated into other languages. 

As you wish ;-)

In polish translation this:

Quote

They are not with us.
...
No! Leave them alone. You hurt them enough.

Is translated as:

Quote

Nie jest z nami.

...

Nie! Zostawcie je w spokoju! Dość je skrzywdziliście!

In Polish, "to be" (and other verbs as well) is inflected by person, and also has form singular and plural. In this quote, Sibling is described in 3d person, and is singular (jest), in relation to plural (są). If Sibling is collective, first sentence should be translated not "Nie jest z nami" but "Nie są z nami".

[+Oltux72]

3 hours ago, Bzhydack said:

In Polish, "to be" (and other verbs as well) is inflected by person, and also has form singular and plural. In this quote, Sibling is described in 3d person, and is singular (jest), in relation to plural (są). If Sibling is collective, first sentence should be translated not "Nie jest z nami" but "Nie są z nami".

Now we are going to places I really had not expected. But, OK, in this case Polish grammar is on topic. I love grammar.

Quote

Nie! Zostawcie je w spokoju! Dość je skrzywdziliście!

Could you comment on that? I would have expected: Zostawcie go w spokoju!

[Subvisual Haze]

4 hours ago, Bzhydack said:

As you wish ;-)

In polish translation this:

Is translated as:

In Polish, "to be" (and other verbs as well) is inflected by person, and also has form singular and plural. In this quote, Sibling is described in 3d person, and is singular (jest), in relation to plural (są). If Sibling is collective, first sentence should be translated not "Nie jest z nami" but "Nie są z nami".

Awesome, thanks . 

[+Ptolema]

On 9/3/2020 at 10:53 AM, Innovation said:

I personally think it means “you (a Bondsmith) hurt (broke their oaths with the Sibling prior to the Recreance) them (the Sibling) enough.”

Considering the epigraphs seem to talk about problems between the Radiants back then, I wonder if those "divisions" lead to harm befalling the Sibling, or maybe even lead to their Bondsmith being killed in a way like how Syl fell into a slumber when her first Windrunner died. Could have been something else. Spren seem to almost universally consider deadeyes to be "dead", yet the Sibling is stated to be asleep. Plus the fact that whoever spoke on the epigraph says they agree that something was happening to the Sibling, but that the division among the Radiants was not the cause, implies at least some people must have believed that division to be to blame. The fact that the "Good night, sweet Sibling. Good night, Radiants." epigraphs is a ruby really doesn't help, considering how the ashspren seem to currently hate humanity.

[+Bzhydack]

12 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

Could you comment on that? I would have expected: Zostawcie go w spokoju!

"Zostawcie go w spokoju" is for masculine person. This will mean "Leave him alone". And we all know that Sibling is neither male or female. Luckily, in Polish we have also neutral person. More common for objects, but not uncommon for people either. Good example is "Child" - "Dziecko". Child is "it" in Polish (like in German, where you have "das Kind"). Example: When you see few people bullying child and to stop them, you will shout:

Zostawcie go (Leave him) - if this is boy.

Zostawcie ją (Leave her) - if this is girl

Zostawcie je - if you cannot tell its boy or girl so you relate to "child". Neutral person.

But, this sentence is interesting because in Polish, dependent on context, "Zostawcie je" can mean also "Leave it" (singular neutral) and "Leave them" (if "they" are plural feminine or neutral. For plural masculine, will be "Zostawcie ich"). So cannot be used against your theory, without context is perfectly ambiguous.

Edited September 5, 2020 by Bzhydack

[Karger]

Can we get another language reader on the thread?  It seems like the sort of thing Dragonsteel would check.

[spaidapig]

Part German reader here.

So in the OB epigraphs:

Chapter 13, book 2: 70 in the english version: Etwas geschieht mit dem Geschwister.

Chapter 11, book 2: corresponding to 68: der Geschwisterteil habe sich absichtlich zurückgezogen.

It seems like third person singular to me, but German can be confusing.

So to the translation of "them":

This

Quote

They are not with us.
...
No! Leave them alone. You hurt them enough.

translates to.

Quote

Aber ES ist nicht bei uns

Nein! Lass SIE in Ruhe. Du hast IHNEN schon genug weh getan.

And this is very confusing to me, because in the first sentence he uses "ES" which is the third person singular neutral pronoun.

In the second part they translate it to "SIE", which could be either third person singular feminin or third person plural. "IHNEN" is without doubt thrid person plural, but could refer to the Sibling AND the Nightwatcher. Otherwise this translation would be very inconsistent and I don't know what to make out of this.

 

Just found another oddity:

The last epigraph from the gem archive in Urithiru:

Quote

Good night, dear Urithiru. Good night, sweet Sibling. Good night, Radiants

In german the " sweet Sibling" was translated to "lieber Zwilling", in englisch "twin". 

Now I'm even more confused, but it is singular again.

Maybe the german book is no good reference.

Edited September 6, 2020 by spaidapig
Typos

[+Oltux72]

On 05/09/2020 at 9:06 AM, Bzhydack said:

But, this sentence is interesting because in Polish, dependent on context, "Zostawcie je" can mean also "Leave it" (singular neutral) and "Leave them" (if "they" are plural feminine

I think we should not consider the Sibling refered to as female on grounds of plausibilty

On 05/09/2020 at 9:06 AM, Bzhydack said:

or neutral. For plural masculine, will be "Zostawcie ich"). So cannot be used against your theory, without context is perfectly ambiguous.

Hence we know for sure neutral and have one reference that is singular and another that is ambiguous on number.

20 hours ago, spaidapig said:

It seems like third person singular to me, but German can be confusing.

Even in English the Sibling as a word is singular.

20 hours ago, spaidapig said:

And this is very confusing to me, because in the first sentence he uses "ES" which is the third person singular neutral pronoun.

Entirely consistent with the Polish version.

20 hours ago, spaidapig said:

In the second part they translate it to "SIE", which could be either third person singular feminin or third person plural.

Again, female just makes no sense.

20 hours ago, spaidapig said:

"IHNEN" is without doubt thrid person plural, but could refer to the Sibling AND the Nightwatcher. Otherwise this translation would be very inconsistent and I don't know what to make out of this.

German makes no gender differences in the plural, so we get no information on gender, but we get an unambiguous plural.

Combining both languages we get:

1. singular/neutral
2. plural/neutral

Now, isn't confusion about number exactly what you would expect for a hive mind? We get around this in the case of the Sleepless because its parts are unambiguously animals. Yet there is no logical requirement for the parts of a hive mind not also being intelligent beings.

20 hours ago, spaidapig said:

In german the " sweet Sibling" was translated to "lieber Zwilling", in englisch "twin". 

Now I'm even more confused, but it is singular again.

Maybe the german book is no good reference.

Probably the translator did not realize that this was a reference to a proper name and was forced to find an alternative for a word usually not used in the singular in German, assuming that the recording referred to an individual's sibling.

[Kingsdaughter613]

On 9/3/2020 at 10:46 AM, Subvisual Haze said:

It would be interesting to see how "them" is translated into other languages.  The ambiguity here derives from English specifically using the same pronoun for 3rd person gender neutral singular, and 3rd person plural.

English does not. Third person gender neutral singular is IT. For some reason people have an issue with this for reasons incomprehensible to me. Lois McMaster Bujold used it correctly for her hermaphrodites and it worked really well. (Pun intended.) I don’t see why we need to misuse another word, or create a new one, when we HAVE one.

[ftl]

"It" refers to objects or animals, but for people you use "them" which is the same for singular and plural. The choice of which of those to use when describing a spren implies information about the sentience/humanity of the spren - you'd use "it" if talking about a mindless force of nature, but "them" when talking about a gender-neutral person.

[Karger]

On 9/6/2020 at 5:57 AM, spaidapig said:

In the second part they translate it to "SIE", which could be either third person singular feminin or third person plural. "IHNEN" is without doubt thrid person plural, but could refer to the Sibling AND the Nightwatcher. Otherwise this translation would be very inconsistent and I don't know what to make out of this.

I do not speak German at all but is it possible that he is using a diminutive or implying a relationship by the pronoun? 

5 hours ago, Kingsdaughter613 said:

English does not. Third person gender neutral singular is IT.

It really is not.  As of the 19th century he was actually gender neutral singular.  The motto of the grammarians was "the masculine embraces the feminine."  Since we now at least officially support gender equality that really doesn't work anymore.  However despite some writers using it as a singular pronoun it has never really caught on.

[Realmatic Shadow]

5 hours ago, Kingsdaughter613 said:

For some reason people have an issue with this for reasons incomprehensible to me.

People have an issue with this usage of 'it' as it has had a more common association with referral to objects and (sometimes) animals. Due to this common association, it is seen as dehumanizing by many when referred to using 'it', whereas the term 'them' has always been used to refer to people, and was used by many prominent historical authors to refer to ambiguously gendered characters. Overall the more commonly used word in modern times is 'them' for gender neutral singular when referring to people, and as such you might as well just use it. Language is more about everyone understanding each other, not following strict language rules that few people actually know (see the word 'Simp', which has no real definition as of yet, but many individuals on the internet understand it. Is it a real word?)

[+Oltux72]

5 hours ago, Karger said:

I do not speak German at all but is it possible that he is using a diminutive or implying a relationship by the pronoun? 

It still would be a plural reference, not a singular. Table of pronouns of the third person:

nominative    er      sie      es     sie
accusatve     ihn     sie      es    sie
dative           ihm     ihr      ihm  ihnen
genitive         seiner ihrer   seiner ihrer

As you can see the form "ihnen" is unique. It is a dative plural. You can also see that quite some forms are identical. So these forms are ambiguous. Somebody could do a table like this for Polish (technically you'd need three - Polish is a Slavic language and thus has kept the long and short pronouns and innovated prepositional forms) And you'd find ambiguities in them, too. But the ambiguities are different. So we can use multiple languages to find common forms and reduce ambiguity.
The most interesting language would now be actually Serbian, as its plural forms are unambiguously plural.

EDIT: Arabian or Hebrew would also help, as they have gendered verbs.

So far we can be sure that The Sibling is refered to as singular and plural.

Quote

It really is not.  As of the 19th century he was actually gender neutral singular.  The motto of the grammarians was "the masculine embraces the feminine."  Since we now at least officially support gender equality that really doesn't work anymore.  However despite some writers using it as a singular pronoun it has never really caught on.

English is in a rather unique position of having retained gender only in pronouns.

Edited September 11, 2020 by Oltux72
Forgot about semitic languages

[Harfyn]

Maybe the sibling has some connection to the sleepless/Aimia? A spren of the sleepless - hurt in the scouring of Aimia. Not totally sure if that works, timing-wise, but I do like the idea of the Sleepless godspren being... asleep.

[+Oltux72]

1 hour ago, Harfyn said:

Maybe the sibling has some connection to the sleepless/Aimia? A spren of the sleepless - hurt in the scouring of Aimia. Not totally sure if that works, timing-wise, but I do like the idea of the Sleepless godspren being... asleep.

The scouring postdates the Recreance considerably. Urithiru was given up after The Sibling began failing. That predate the Recreance.

[Harfyn]

7 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

The scouring postdates the Recreance considerably. Urithiru was given up after The Sibling began failing. That predate the Recreance.

Yeah this is definitely a stretch, but that doesn't 100% mean they aren't connected - totally possible that the sibling leaving Urithiru and the Scouring were separate events that caused the Sibling pain. Like - sibling left Urithiru and ended up moving to Aimia, starting to re-build and recover until the Scouring put them back again. I'm definitely jumping through hoops here, but Aimians were the first thought I had when I saw "Them" as the pronoun.

I also like the idea of them being connected because it gives us more info on two of our big unknowns in one fell swoop.