Stormlight Ethnicities

[Ghanderflaffle she/her]

So I told my mom (who is also a Sanderfan) that she should attempt to make chouta. She replied with "first we need to know what ethnicity the Herdazians are based on." I guessed Hispanic from the descriptions, but I was wondering what y'all thought. Add your guesses for any of the kingdoms in Stormlight! A few of mine are:

Herdazian: Hispanic or Greek

Alethi: Roman

Veden or Horneater: Irish

[Greywatch she/her]

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reddidaccount1

In Sanderson's most recent lecture (50:25 in) to his BYU Writing Class, he mentions that Alethkar natives resemble Asians. This came as a bit of a surprise to me, especially since I always imagined the Shin as the "Asians" of that world.

Brandon Sanderson

It's a little more complicated than I might have made it seem. Alethkar natives other than the Shin have the epicanthic fold, but the Alethi wouldn't look strictly Asian to you--they'd look like a race that you can't define, as we don't have them on earth. I use half-Asian/half-arab or half-asian/half-Polynesian models as my guide some of the time, but Alethi are going to have a tanner skin than some of those.

Some Horneaters might look Caucasian to you--but then, most will not. They'll seem like something alien, and not all of them have light skin; they tend to walk a spectrum between pale and coppery. Reshi and Herdazians will look closest to something like an indigenous Bolivian.

Shin would look the closest to Caucasian to you, but again, they're not an Earth ethnicity. So you might not be able to place them either.

A lot of the fanart has done a good job with this, and if you search through it, it might help you get an idea.

General Reddit 2016 (July 13, 2016)

 

[Winds Alight she/her]

It was a big revelation for me when I learned about this WoB.
I had pictured the Alethi more Arab looking before because of the Tan and didn't get at all what "the Shin have weirdly big eyes" actually implied.

[Gasper he/him]

I assumed that the Alethi were Indian, based on their descriptions and their food.

The Herdazians appear to be close to Hispanic, mainly because their culture and food appear reasonably close to hispanic food.

The Horneaters appear to be similar to an Island culture like Polynesian.

I thought the Azish were African American with Ancient Chinese culture.

I assumed the Shin were a bunch of slightly weird looking, short white people. 

[Weltall]

Brandon's said on multiple occasions that the Herdazians are meant to have a Hispanic feel to them, so if you're looking for inspiration for chouta you'd want to be aiming in that direction. I'd always imagined chouta as being more like a shawarma before learning that, but such is the power of perception. If you look around you'll find more than a few topics discussing ideas about how to make the stuff. Here's a couple to get you started.

2 hours ago, Gasper said:

The Horneaters appear to be similar to an Island culture like Polynesian.

The language was definitely modeled that way. Brandon's said that culturally they're a mix of Polynesian, Russian and Scots.

And yeah, with the examination system I definitely see some Chinese (or at least broadly Confucian) influence on Azir. Actually, Brandon's given us that one. He also mentioned some influence from India, at least in the way they treat homosexuality, crossed with the Confucian bureaucracy element.

Edited February 11, 2019 by Weltall

[RShara she/her]

Alethi are based on a lot of Middle Eastern to Eastern cultural ideas. The safehand thing is inspired by Korea, the pronunciation is very Hebrew, and the features are a mix of Asian and Middle Eastern.

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Questioner [PENDING REVIEW]

What's the concept of the safehand?

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]

Yes. There's a writerly answer and an in-world answer. Which do you want to know?

Questioner [PENDING REVIEW]

Let's do the writer answer.

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]

Writer answer, so. I am fascinated by taboo. I am fascinated by the fact that in Asia you don't show your, the bottom of your foot to people. It's terribly offensive. I am fascinated that in some cultures some parts of the body are shown and others aren't. Things that we would consider vulgar, to other people are not, and vice versa. It just fascinates me as a writer and when I approached the books I was looking for a ways that I could give a feel for a human culture but not one that we have seen before and the safehand grew out of that.

Oathbringer Leeds signing (Dec. 1, 2017)

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shdwfeather

One of my favourite parts about Roshar is the diverse set of cultures that exist in the world. Could you talk about some of the inspirations for the complicated cultures such as the Alethi?

Brandon Sanderson

Building Roshar, I wanted to make sure that I was doing a little extra worldbuilding work. I don't want to say that for something like Mistborn I'm not doing worldbuilding work, but my focus was in other areas. I wanted Mistborn to be accessible, so I made it an Earth analogue.

I consider Roshar my showpiece for worldbuilding, and as such I wanted everything about it to display some of the best of what science fiction and fantasy is capable of: new ecologies, new cultures, cultures that feel real but that at the same time are not just earth analogues. Because of that, I've done a lot of work to individualize and distinctify a lot of the various cultures on Roshar.

Now, that said, creativity is really the recombination of things you've seen before. We as human beings, by our very nature, can't imagine something we've never seen. What we can do is take different things we've seen and combine them in new ways. That's the soul of creativity. It's the unicorn idea—we've seen things with horns, and we've seen horses. We put the two together and create something new, a unicorn.

Because of that, I don't know if it's possible to create a culture in a fantasy book that isn't inspired in some way by various earth cultures. I'm trying not to be as overt about it as The Wheel of Time was, because one of the cool things about The Wheel of Time was its twisting and turning of Earth cultures into Randland cultures.

That's a big preface. What are my inspirations for the Alethi, for all of the different cultures? There's definitely some Korean in there. There's some Semitic cultures in there. The magic system table, the double eye, is based on the idea of the Sefer and the Tree of Life from the Jewish Kabbalah. That's where I can trace the original inspiration of that. I can trace the original inspiration of the safehand to Koreans not showing people the bottom of their feet because they felt that that is an insult—that's not something you do. I can trace the Alethi apparel to various different clothing influences. I'm hoping that a lot of where I get the cultures is based off the interplay between the setting, the histories, the idea of the highstorms, and the metaphor of the desolations. My influences come from all over the place.

Tor.com The Way of Kings Re-Read Interview (June 10, 2014)

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Bradtholomew

What is the origin of the name Kaladin?

My wife and I recently had our first child and that's what we named him. Just curious if there's any story behind the name.

Brandon Sanderson

I use Arabic in some of the creation of Alethi names, and Kaled (or Khaled) was the root I started playing with to come up with a new name for Kaladin, as I didn't like the one I'd used in 2002. I'd already designed Kalak after this, the Herald, and wanted a common name version of this.

When I arrived at Kaladin, it sounded right to me--likely because of the similarity to Paladin, as others noted below.

Dragonsandman

So if Kaladin's name is derived from Khaled, is it fair to assume that the Alethi language sounds similar to Arabic?

Brandon Sanderson

Alethi has some Hebrew to it too. I used Semitic language roots for the Dawnchant, which had a huge influence on Rosharan languages. While there are a few oddballs rules, and some linguistics that stand on their own, both major language groups on Roshar (the Azish family and the Vorin family) would probably sound very Arabic to you.

For example, the Alethi Kh is a voiceless velar fricative. The Azish kk or q sound is a voiceless uvular, sometimes stop, sometimes an affricate. Sometimes a uvular ejective.

No, I can't make those sounds on demand. Peter can, though. It's helpful to have a linguist on my team.

Shin is its own language, as is Iriali.

BeskarKomrk

What can't Peter do? He seems to be an expert on everything!

Brandon Sanderson

He is amazing. But, in this case, he was a linguistics major in college. So there's a little extra amazingness from him in these areas.

/r/fantasy AMA 2017 (Feb. 10, 2017)

 

Edited February 11, 2019 by RShara

[Gasper he/him]

This begs the question: What is bread like on Roshar? Is Herdazian flatbread anything like Alethi flatbread? What does Shin bread taste like? And what flavorings go into Thaylen pastries? Does anybody have any links relating to this? My last chouta recipe failed due to the bread.