A linguistic look at the names of Core Aethers

[+asmodeus]

I'll come back to this post and edit things in as I get time to actually comprehensively lay my thoughts on these. Edit complete.

We've known for a while that Brandon tends to look for linguistic inspirations in the real world. The most obvious of these is the names of the Unmade tying to various mesopotamian deities, but Roshar is rife with this. "Narak," the Listener name for the central plateau of the Shattered Plains (which is their home) literally translates to "hell" in Sanskrit/Hindi, which is very apt in a series that deals with themes of damnation and such. It's also kind of thematic, in various ways, one of which is - just as an example - that creatures that look like demons (once the listeners take up the regal stormform) and follow a god of hatred come from Narak (a.k.a hell) in Words of Radiance. Another very easy one is Amaram, where "Amar" in Sanskrit/Hindi literally translates to "undying" (in the "immortal" sense). Kaladin's whole "born unto eternity" thing could also be another one of these influences because "Kal" can mean time/tomorrowness/era depending on how you look at it, in Sanskrit/Hindi.

All of this is to say that when we got the very obviously Indian-subcontinent inspired look at Aethers, in the form of Twinsoul... well. There's lots of linguistic inspiration happening too.

I'll go find sources later, I gotta get up early tomorrow, but here's some thought vomit regardless.

 

Twinsoul, codename for "Shri Sanvith Prasanva Mahik va Sila," refers to three of the twelve Primal Aethers by name. These are, Silajana (the core aether Prasanva is directly bonded to), Suna, and Vishwadhar.

That's... a lot of words. I'm going to be looking at this from a Sanskrit/Hindi perspective, as those are the languages I'm personally most familiar with, though there's a million and one different dialects and languages in the general family of languages in the Indian Subcontinent.

Let's start with the easiest, "Vishwadhar."

• "Vishwa" basically means "the world," as in, the world which we live in. "-dhar" as a suffix translates to "holder/bearer." Thus, "Vishwadhar," as a word, translates to "worldbearer," perhaps "one who bears the world" or "one who bears worlds."
• An alternative reading here would be to read it as Viswhadhaar, in which case you could potentially get "worldblade," but in such a way that the world is a quality of the blade itself.
• Another potential bastardization, "Vishwadhaara," gets us something more akin to "worldstream" or "worldchannel," in the sense of rivers and mountain streams.

I personally think the first one is the most likely, even if the actual canon reading turns out to be something slightly different.

"Silajana" gave me a lot of trouble, but according to @Jofwu over on the discord, Kalyani confirmed this as "origin of the stone."

• If so, then they break down as "Sila" (stone) and "Jana" (birth? one who births?).
• I had other ideas for this, but since Kalyani confirmed this, there's really no point in digging deeper.

"Suna" can go so many different ways, I don't know where to start. I'll come back to this later when I have more time to think about how to write this down. I have now come back, and... yeah, this one is so vague and weird, I need more time, because it really goes many places.

Then there's Twinsoul's name itself.

"Shri" is an honorific, generally used when recognizing someone as being respectable in their own right 

"Sanvith" is weird. Acc. to Jofwu, Kalyani says this means "Son of the Mountain," but I cannot find where this is pulled from.

"Prasanva" is weird. As others have pointed out down below, one of the most straightforward ways to approach this is to take the "pra" as a prefix, and then deal with the rest of the word, "sanva" as one thing. This doesn't quite work, because while there's lots of similar words I can use for inspiration, nothing fits things completely. That, unfortunately, is also the problem if you don't go the whole "pra+sanva" route, so... yeah. There's... a possibility, that the break down is somehow "Pra + san/sam + va," with elements coming together such that you get "forward mountain and" but... I dislike that immensely, because we don't have "maahikva" after, we have "maahik va".

So... these are closest to what I can find:

Quote

प्र-√शम् P. -शाम्यति, to become calm or tranquil, be pacified or soothed, settle down (as dust);
to be allayed or extinguished, cease, disappear, fade away;
Caus. -शमयति (rarely शाम्°), to appease, calm, quench, allay, extinguish, terminate;
to make subject, subdue, conquer.

Quote

प्र-√सह् a Ā. -सहते (rarely P. °ति: ind.p. -सह्य), to conquer, be victorious;
to bear up against, be a match for or able to withstand, sustain, endure (acc.);
to check, restrain;
to be able to.

What I'm pulling from aren't exactly "Prasanva," but instead "Prasham" and "Prasaha," where the words are similar enough that I can kind of see a form of them being Prasanva.

"Maahik" is generally referring to earthly qualities. Acc. to Kalyani, this means "earth," too, so I'm happy.

"va," is generally used as a conjunctive "and also" sound, so you might say, "something something something v something" which ends up being meant as "something something something and something." Think of it as adding a delimiter between two items of a list, though it's more combining those two items into being taken as one group, almost.

"Sila" probably refers to "stone," though "Sila" also tends to be used to refer to (virtuous) quality, with words like "sushil" translating to "having good virtue."

"Raj of the Coriander Court" most likely means Twinsoul is the king, or atleast someone in the royal Coriander Court.

 

Putting everything together, there's a possibility that Twinsoul's full name translates to "Lord Mountain-son, Conqueror of Earth and Stone, King of the Coriander Court."

 

I'm technically on vacation right now, and I'm away from my regular workspace from where I could get you direct sources for some of this, but I will eventually edit this post and get it more organized.

 

 

Edited December 1, 2022 by asmodeus
had some time to add to the post.

[+Oltux72 he/him]

7 hours ago, asmodeus said:

Let's start with the easiest, Vishwadhar. "Vishwa" basically means "the world," as in, the world which we live in. "-dhar" as a suffix translates to "holder/bearer." Thus, "Vishwadhar," as a word, translates to "worldbearer," perhaps "one who bears the world" or "one who bears worlds."

I suspect Brandon of getting a copy of the Rgveda. There you'll find the Vishvadevas or Allgods, as it is usually translated. The root itself can be reconstructed to go back *weik'- (more or less settle). You find its modern descendants in "-wick" in place names. The world sense probably comes from a shortening of the "settled world".

7 hours ago, asmodeus said:

"Silajana" gave me a lot of trouble, but according to @Jofwu over on the discord, Kalyani confirmed this as "origin of the stone." If so, then they break down as "Sila" (stone) and "Jana" (birth? one who births?).

Stonebirther would fit what his aether does. "Stoneborn" would also fit. It is linguistically closer. The name seems to be an adjective.

 

[+asmodeus]

37 minutes ago, Oltux72 said:

I suspect Brandon of getting a copy of the Rgveda. There you'll find the Vishvadevas or Allgods, as it is usually translated. The root itself can be reconstructed to go back *weik'- (more or less settle). You find its modern descendants in "-wick" in place names. The world sense probably comes from a shortening of the "settled world".

Stonebirther would fit what his aether does. "Stoneborn" would also fit. It is linguistically closer. The name seems to be an adjective.

 

I was thinking something along those lines too, where maybe the name refers to the whole interweb of the aether than just the entity?

I was thinking of going more with "Those of stone" but yeah, "Stoneborn" sounds about right.

[+Oltux72 he/him]

6 minutes ago, asmodeus said:

I was thinking something along those lines too, where maybe the name refers to the whole interweb of the aether than just the entity?

I was thinking of going more with "Those of stone" but yeah, "Stoneborn" sounds about right.

That raises the question of the life cycle of the aethers of whether they indeed have one. We do not know whether there is only the one Core Aether or whether Core Aethers are life forms that somehow reproduce and whether the bonded form is a part of the life cycle or a side branch like soldier forms in social insects.

The unbonded form which we saw in Oathbringer is what you could call a stone, a shiny colored stone, but a stone.
"jana-" goes back to the "*genh1-" root (thus "jani" in Sanskrit - set root) which seems to still have a broader meaning. Stonekin? Stonefolk?

[+asmodeus]

@Oltux72 any opinions on "Suna" and "Prasanva"?

"Suna" makes me think of "to listen," but... it could also go towards "barren," and some other esoteric places.

"Prasanva" is something I'm having a lot of trouble with, because it almost fits things but isn't any of them.

Using placeholder blanks for it, TwinSoul's name turns out to be;

"Lord Mountain-son _____ (of?) Earth and Stone, King of the Coriander Court"

 

Edited November 20, 2022 by asmodeus

[+Oltux72 he/him]

8 hours ago, asmodeus said:

@Oltux72 any opinions on "Suna" and "Prasanva"?

"Suna" makes me think of "to listen," but... it could also go towards "barren," and some other esoteric places.

My Sanskrit dictionary has "suna" as
"summit, mountain ridge, highland"

8 hours ago, asmodeus said:

"Prasanva" is something I'm having a lot of trouble with, because it almost fits things but isn't any of them.

It looks like a compound "pra" is obviously "front, foreward", but I have no idea of "sanva" is supposed to be.

 

[LongShlong]

Might add, from Nepali similar to Hindi,

• Suna made me think of "Gold" (सुन - Soon) or "Listen" (सुन्नु - Sunnu).
• Vishwadhar could mean the "World's" (विश्व - Vishva) "Edge" (धार - dhar). I also asked my mother these, and she said this could be something like "throughout the world" or "all around the world".
• Silajana is the most straightforward one as everyone mentioned literally would translate to "born of stone" or "Stoneborn".
• Prasanva sounds like the prefix (प्र - Pra) which means "front, before, or forward" and "With/Together" (संग - sanga).
• I'll take y'all word for Sanvith and Mahik since I can't tease meanings out of those out in Nepali.

So I'll posit the following theory for the etymology of Shri Sanvith Prasanva Mahik va Sila.

Shri is the title for respect, "Lord"

Sanvith is probably his given name meaning "Son of the Mountain".

Prasanva is probably his surname meaning "together from the past". Maybe signifying a long familial connection to the Aethers?

Mahik va Sila is probably a religious title, "Silajana's earthy one". Probably denoting his status as one of Silajana's Aetherbound.

 

I hope to everyone who doesn't speak a Sanskrit based language, I get across the distinction between words and names. Like in English "Nick" means "The Victory of the People", but while you might be aware of the meaning, you're not actually intending to say like "Hey how are you doing victory of the people" when using a name.

Meanwhile things like "Pope" would be a title which denotes something like "The ordained religious leader of the Catholic Church", and everyone is aware and intends for the full definition to be applied.

This might seem trivial or obvious in English, but I just want to get the framework across when he calls himself Prasanva, the meaning is kind of secondary to the usage (cause it's a name) while I believe Mahik denotes something important.

So all together, the most respectful way to refer to him in English would be as follows: "Lord Sanvith Prasanva the Mahik of Sila(jana), Grand Aetherbound of the Twelve Kingdoms, Raj of the Coriander Court".

 

P.S. If none of that was confusing, I almost arbitrarily chose the given name, surname, and title just based on what I liked best and made sense to me. For an alternative, his name could be "Prasanva Mahik" and his title would translate to "Son of the mountain, Prasanva Mahik, of Silajana" or any combination of title and name with "Prasanva", "Mahik", and "Sanvith". Or all three could be part of his name, and just "va Sila" is an identifier like "Brightlord".

Most likely Prasanva is part of his name since both himself and his friends call him that, and I don't think you would go around calling yourself "Pope" for instance. 

 

 

 

[+asmodeus]

added some things to the original post, specifically more of a breakdown of "Prasanva," and plugged everything together to form one potential reading of Twinsoul's name. I could be completely off-mark here, or I could be well on my way.

[+Oltux72 he/him]

On 19.11.2022 at 8:15 AM, asmodeus said:

"Prasanva" is weird. As others have pointed out down below, one of the most straightforward ways to approach this is to take the "pra" as a prefix, and then deal with the rest of the word, "sanva" as one thing. This doesn't quite work, because while there's lots of similar words I can use for inspiration, nothing fits things completely. That, unfortunately, is also the problem if you don't go the whole "pra+sanva" route, so... yeah. There's... a possibility, that the break down is somehow "Pra + san/sam + va," with elements coming together such that you get "forward mountain and" but... I dislike that immensely, because we don't have "maahikva" after, we have "maahik va".

That problem'll vanish if you don't insist on those two "va" being the same. The second free standing "va" could be a contraction of iva.

 

[AdonalsiumIsMyDad]

Interestingly Narak also means hell in Korean (나락)

[Honorless he/him]

Oh hey, nice to see this has a thread!

I didn't look into it too deeply, but... I'll just copy paste what I had on it over here

Quote

I wasn't sure how Silajana was broken down, though I did know a name "Nilanjana" which was what popped up in my head first, but I was pretty sure that's Neel+Anjana. Sila is stone, Jana could mean a person. So, "person of stone", "He or she, of stone", was my first guess. The 's' is usually aspirated, iirc. English isn't great for transliterating Indian languages... there were a lot of suffixes it could've been. Based on which 'a' was a schwa, which was a long ā, it could've been a lot of different things. But "origin" makes a lot of sense. And we're going full Sanskrit.

Vishwadhar would mean "lord of the world" with the base words being Vishva (world) and Dharan (bear / hold / wield), it's a title of a Hindu god, Vishnu. World's Edge is a possible translation, Vishva+Dhar, but given how Silajana is translated, I would say it's less likely.

The amount of pronunciations and meanings "Suna" could have... it's too much. I don't even know if the 's' is aspirated (like sh... yeah I don't know why aspirated 's' sounds aren't just transliterated into 'sh' either). But going by context, that these are the names of Aethers...

I remember going through my references and ignoring certain definitions but now that I think about it, some of those translations could make sense. Like "execution site" or "place of slaughter" if it was referring to the Aether corresponding to the Crimson Sea.

It's probably not "zero", "empty", "void", that's more commonly transliterated as "sunya" ("shunya" would be better). It sounds grand, but I don't think there's an Aether like that, iirc. But there could be an Aether of Investiture nullification out there, I guess. Tress' world probably wouldn't realise what that Aether would do, and so it might've gone unremarked within the scope of the story.

It's possible that it refers to a Verdant Aether, and means something like "bloom" or "bud" or "fruit", but I'm not sure. Verdant doesn't produce vines with flowers or fruits, either in Tress or AoN.

It could also be the Sunlight Aether, for "beam of light".

So I got a few possibilities for Suna!

Edited February 1, 2023 by Honorless